"REcstatic" - Yasiin Bey & Preservation [Free Album Download]

Remember when Preservation dropped the "Quite Dog Bite Hard" remix as part of an eventual full album remix of Mos Def's 2009 The Ecstatic? Well, the day has finally arrived. The REcstatic is available for your downloading pleasure and Preservation doesn't disappoint. It's jazzy at times, throwback boom bap at others. Preservation flips the same samples as the originals on a few of the tracks and goes in a totally new direction with other cuts.

And while it's hard, no, impossible, to compete with a production trio the likes of Madlib, Oh No, and J Dilla (The Ecstatic's team), Preservation succeeds in putting his own unique spin on each track while still fitting into the overall aesthetic of the original LP. This is what he had to say about working on the project:

The project started as a slow build with a few songs and then it become a challenge to do them all. Because it was a sample-based album, I wanted to keep the remixes sample-based and for them to have the same pitch, key and tone as the originals. The original beats were non-traditional and the amount of singing made it very difficult to remix with this intention of the same energy. It’s the result of countless hours of digging through records to sample, constructing the beat, wrapping it around the vocal, adjusting the tempo, and so on. ‘Quiet Dog Bite Hard’ was exciting because I was remixing my own track and it drew me into the process, and ‘Workers Comp’ was the most unique due to its complex time signature.

The album ends with "Black Fantastic" taking the place of "Casa Bey", the only track that Preservation didn't produce himself. Instead, he tapped Minnesota for the beat to use with Bey's vocals. Hopefully, this album is part of a larger trend in hip hop: the return of the full remix album. Along with Apollo Brown's Brown Tape, the 12 Reasons to Die remix album, Preservation is working to resurrect a long forgotten piece of the game.

Download The REcstatic on Preservation's Mon Dieu Music page and be sure to catch Old Numbers, Preservation's LP coming out July 9th.