Slope: Slope Is Dope

Over the last ten years Slope, the brainchild of DJ/producers Honesty and Daniel Paul, has been pioneering global electronica, fusing broken beat, hip hop, and house music with a little bit of soul. The latest in a long line of interesting, creative acts signed by Sonar Kollectiv, Slope has released several 12-inch singles, a couple of albums, and a slew of collaborations with or remixes of like-minded artists such as Clara Hill and Artist A. With Slope Is Dope, the band offers an odds’n’sods collection of remixes, exclusive tracks and collaborations not previously available in one place. None of this stuff is particularly groundbreaking. In fact, some of it, like the album opening remix of “Clapz” by Studio R, sounds like downtempo-by-numbers a few hip hop-ish beats, some house-y keyboards, a few quirky vocal samples, all slapped together into nice, unobtrusive, dance tracks. I guess there must have been a pretty good reason most of these tracks never made it onto a proper Slope LP. For my money, the best track here is a remix of “Ray Ray” by New Zealand band Fat Freddy’s Drop (“FFD”). Slope turned the unremarkable, dub-inflected original from FFD’s 2005 album Based on a True Story into something much funkier. Propelled by a fat electronic bassline, their version inhabits a slinky groove barely related to the original. Too bad the rest of the disc doesn’t rise to the same heights.