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LP
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BEWITH 176LP
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In the wake of his Stones Throw breakthrough -- Exotic Worlds & Master Treasures -- Stimulator Jones was pegged by many as a '90s throwback artist. However, he literally IS a '90s artist. He's been recording music most of his life and he's now 40. Cool Green Trees (1999-2005) is a collection of beats and loops he created between the ages of 14-20 at home in his basement, bedroom and computer room in Roanoke, Virginia. Everything before 2004 was recorded when he was still in school. He was in eighth grade when he made the 1999 tracks -- he didn't even have his learner's permit. This album is a snapshot of a young man in a simpler time. Things were still mysterious back then and he was flying blind, relying on his ears and having to figure things out for himself. Opener "Pharoah Jones" was inspired by Yesterday's New Quintet and Madlib's ability to capture that classic '70s sound whilst playing all the instruments. The sublime, evocative title track, "Cool Green Trees" was created when Sam was still living at home. He dumped samples off his SU10 into the family desktop and arranged them in a demo version of Pro Tools. "Chill Scratch" snags the final bit of a bossanova record and pairs it with a drum loop before adding experimental scratching run through an Electro Harmonix Memory Man echo pedal. Sam explains just how much these tracks mean to him: "They all have immense historical and sentimental value and I'm proud of them. These beats come from an innocent, simple time when I was just figuring out how to craft these sounds. They're something very personal to me." The cover photo is a picture of Sam standing on his back porch in the latter part of 1998, just before he got his first sampler. Mastering for this vinyl edition was overseen by Be With regular Simon Francis and it was cut by the esteemed Cicely Balston at Abbey Road Studios to be pressed in the Netherlands by Record Industry.
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