3:33 – In the Middle of Infinity
Parallel Thought: 2012
3:33 works in mysterious ways. He/She/They have yet to let on to just who is behind the production, instead putting nothing but their music in the spotlight, uninterrupted by Twitter beefs or even real track titles. One thing is certain: 3:33 has a near flawless knack for the salad days of hip-hop production that recalls DJ Shadow’s Entroducing… to the darkly minimal soundscapes of rusted piano loops and cold strings that characterized the likes of early recordings from Mobb Deep or Raekwon.
With In the Middle of Infinity, 3:33 continues to quietly craft a sound that is refreshing, darkly original and well-rooted in a sound that seemed to have sprung from the days when the streets of NYC were covered more in trash-can fires and rats than baby-strollers and photo-snapping Europeans. This music is rough on the edges, dense and diabolically eerie. No wonder some recent remixes of bluntly lyrical rappers such as Roc Marciano and Danny Brown have worked so well.
As showcased before, 3:33 doesn’t keep the production strictly within the hip-hop realm though, and In the Middle of Infinity is no exception. A description of the record on its Bandcamp describes the album as 3:33 stuck within a time loop of “infinite unfolding madness and confusion.” While a musical consistency stitches each track together, the loose concept can be tossed aside. This instrumental release is a dark, electronic offering of sounds more like the work of expert craftsmen than the results of chaotic experiment.
Each track, with the exception of the closing “White Room” (we’ll get to this later), unfolds into low-end, downtempo loops with big hissing drums, sounds of rattling glass and electronic hisses coupled with warbling, cyclical bass. At moments, with tracks like “ITMOI-2” and “ITMOI-6,” In the Middle of Infinity offers a nod to the trippy, hip-hop sounds of Mo’ Wax Records feeling both vintage and forward-thinking. While elsewhere, on tracks like “ITMOI-8” or “ITMOI-5,” 3:33 gets muddy in the darker crevices of ambient house or even more recently the deconstructed dubstep-y tendencies of UK-producer Andy Stott.
Wherever it goes, 3:33 seemed poised to keep things in a dimly-lit, dreamy mid-tempo state. Headphone music for a gloomy afternoon. Horror flick soundtrack. Late night stereo selection when the party’s been dead for hours and your floor is full of passed out bodies. It’s your choice.
The lone oddball of the group is the closing track “White Room” which clocks in at 44 minutes. An album within an album, the track shares all the same characteristics as the other 10 tracks — moody, dark, ambient — but meanders and lacks the focus of the rest of record. It also begs the question: why not just release the track as its own record? Maybe an example of the concept album idea getting the better of 3:33. Regardless, as the last track, it hardly interrupts the rest of this solid release and for the more adventurous listener, reaps even more benefits beyond what the album already offers in and of itself.
3.5 out of 5