By Dylan Dinho. Ordinarily, I write music reviews of entire albums or mixtapes. However, in order to keep my readers (all seven of them) on their toes, I decided that this week, I will be doing a review and bit of an expose on the artist Mr. Carmack. Unless you spend your time trawling the tide of rather shoddy trap remixes on the Internet, there’s a good chance that you have literally no clue who Mr. Carmack is. Glory goes to the dedicated because after spending a good portion of my life looking at pictures of frogs on the Internet.
While also listening to trap remixes dank enough to make a Mormon start riding with a glock in his ‘Rari, I found myself listening to the song: “The Next Afternoon” by Mr. Carmack. Unlike the other raw tunes that usually permeate the YouTube playlists emblazoned with attractive young women in festival attire, this was different. The song relied less on invoking a physical response to dance and ‘go hard’ and more on producing a sound that was both pleasurable but also catchy and relevant in a plethora of situations.
And that’s what makes Mr. Carmack different than most trap producers. Rather than fitting the mold that musical norms have established for the archetypical sound of trap, Carmack seeks to expand the range of sounds that are in the trap continuum. Every one of his songs breaks the typical mold that is trap music today. When examining the production depth, it is absolutely staggering at the complexity of each track he releases. There are a handful of producers in the world who can even come close to Carmack when discussing sound architecture, especially in comparison to a good portion of the music that becomes popular enough to make it to the radio.
There’s a reason that people get upset when musicians become ‘big’ because for the most part, there is a trend for musicians to play consistently well while they are unknown, but the moment their song gets a spot in the next big Apple product commercial, the quality of their music rapidly declines. For some, there is an overwhelming sense of pride in finding a talented individual who is relatively unheard of that they can parade around with an unwarranted sense of achievement. Despite how psychologically petty it is of people to selfishly hoard talent in order to feel a sense of superiority over others, it happens among hipsters, music snobs and anyone who has a ‘Coexist’ bumper sticker on their car all of the time.
For the most part, it’s hard not to become protective of musicians that you find because music is such a personal experience. Don’t get me wrong, I love going to music festivals surrounded by hundreds of beautiful half-naked people, but the reason I can handle it is because A) they’re beautiful and B) by attending the same concert as me, these young Adonises and Aphrodites are indicating that they find the same noises enjoyable, which is a connection on a more intense, almost biological level.
So, readers, I beg of you: check out Mr. Carmack. If you truly dislike what you hear, by all means, I encourage you to stop reading my publications. However, if you stuck with me for this long, it means you’re my mom or someone with similar taste to me. Either way, you should listen to Mr. Carmack because his mix of cohesive chill electronic beats will make even the most arduous task less of a pain.
Notable Tracks:
Mr. Carmack - The Next Afternoon
Mikos Da Gawd - Beez (Mr. Carmack Remix)
Mr. Carmack - Ryukushima
40Love - Tiki Tiki (Mr. Carmack Remix)
Mr. Carmack - At Night