Kuhn “Even Bears”
Akira Kurosawa’s The Seven Samurai is greatly acclaimed on both sides of the Pacific as […]
Akira Kurosawa’s The Seven Samurai is greatly acclaimed on both sides of the Pacific as one of the most influential films of all time; after all, it birthed one of American cinema’s most beloved westerns, The Magnificent Seven. Interestingly enough, Brooklyn’s Astro Nautico label and Japanese imprint Day Tripper are paying homage to both movies with a collaborative release entitled 7 by 7: Astro Nautico x Day Tripper, on which seven of Astro Nautico’s beatsmiths sample Kurosawa’s seminal film and seven of Osaka’s INNIT crew (who all work with Day Tripper) sample its Westernized counterpart. Opening the American camp’s side of the record is Kuhn‘s “Even Bears,” which finds the Brooklyn beatmaker applying a beat-scene-inspired approach to his arrangements of samples of traditional Japanese percussion and hypnotic vocal chants. The whole thing winds up creating a veritable stomper reminiscent of the kind of East-meets-West productions pioneered by DJ Krush. You can nab the rest of the free digital EP (which is also out on cassette) over on Astro Nautico’s Bandcamp page, or stream it in full after the jump.
