Koushik

Out My Window

[Stones Throw; 2008]

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Styles: instrumental hip-hop, sunny psych-pop
Others: Caribou, Madlib, Flying Lotus, The Free Design Redesigned compilation
Links: Koushik - Stones Throw

Between James Pants’ spectacularly weird debut Welcome, Madlib’s two-part Beat Konducta tribute to Dilla, and now Koushik’s knockout Out My Window, Stones Throw is killing it with the quasi-instrumental beat suites this year. Out My Window merits favorable comparison to that other SoCal stoner producer’s-producer album of 2008, Flying Lotus’s Los Angeles. But where FlyLo summons the lonely nighttime streetlights and freeways of greater LA County, Koushik has warped back to the region’s psychedelic ’60s canon with a 21st-century willitblend.com mentality: think the remix-favorite Free Design or some more nominally rock-oriented artist like Dan Snaith of Caribou.

Actually, think really hard about Caribou: Out My Window is practically a lighter flipside of last year’s Andorra, the separated-at-birth twin of a day-and-night split like Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness (though, thankfully, that’s as far as the latter comparison goes). Like Os Mutantes at their best, Koushik effortlessly summons the hazy feel of running around stoned at noon on a summer day in hot pursuit of a grape soda or some other ridiculous craving to be satiated. The only qualm to pick: like so many instrumental albums from musicians who primarily produce beats, many of the songs are a little too soft, sketchy, and short to tell the differences. With the exception of the excellent-in-themselves “Be With,” “Corner Of Your Smile,” and “In A Green Space,” they often feel like they could use a little more substance, if not just a little more time to stretch out and become themselves rather than fleeting, loop-based ideas forever, chasing their own tails. But there’s nothing wrong with a half-baked album that’s this enjoyable if you’re having a half-baked kind of day.

1. Morning Comes 2. Be With 3. Lying In The Sun 4. Coolin’ 5. Buttaflybeat 6. See You 7. Nothing’s The Same 8. Welcome 9. Corner Of Your Smile 10. In A Green Space 11. Ifoundu 12. Outerlude 13. Bright And Shining 14. Forest Loop 15. Out My Window 16. Floating On

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