CD – Senufo Editions
From the San Francisco Bay Area in California comes Dakim Saadiq, also known under the moniker Dak as an abstract hip-hop producer and lo-fi experimenter. In 34 Fragments, varying the sound quality of his sources, Saadiq subjects his audio captures – collected along the many branches of the Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART), the rapid transport network that extends for more than 160 kilometers – to tape cassette treatments. These were then added to other recordings from his collection, making cuts, overdubs and manipulations directly on the project master tape, purposefully manipulating pitches and employing various compositional techniques. Some parts turn out to be more bare, composing something similar to environmental background music, an amplification of rustling and a loss of sound “coherence”, with the addition of audio loops and the products of studio editing. The subsequent developments prove to be more percussive and it is hard to tell if they are a result of neutral captures or production. The whole is permeated by infinite passages that stray between analogue and digital worlds, in a kind of post editing audio-abuse. The result is charming, enigmatic and a thousand miles away from the artist’s musical “origins”. Dakim allows himself to be transported by his knowledge of recording processes and doesn’t let many aesthetic-emotional moves “flood” the coherence of the project, creating a sensitive and involving experience for his listeners.