„Paths meet at the corner. People have a drink and talk at the corner. The point where two paths meet is more than a linear function. The X marks the point where two ideas meet, sometimes worlds meet, cosmoses meet, or maybe just two people meet.
Drummer and producer Opek couldn’t have made this album alone, nor would he have wanted to, because the magic comes from collaboration.
For the album ‘Corners’, Opek invited some of his favorite musicians from the Ruhr area for each and every track.
Sometimes the guests were invited as soloists (Julius van Rhee on ‘The Lighthouse’), sometimes he recorded an artist for hours just to find the perfect bass loop (Caris Hermes on ‘Finders Keepers’). The result is an intimate mixture of noisy instrumental hip hop and honest jazz.
Check your corner(s)!“
„Opek prefers the cozy retirement life over the hectic leasing lifestyle. The beatproducer, drummer and rapper was born in the Ruhr area in 1990. Not on coal and not on gold, but somewhere where there was a computer and a big brother who explained to him around 2004 how ‘Fruity Loops’ works and what a snare is. And then there was hip hop, this thing that can suddenly fill every spare minute.
After years of drunken freestyles in the park and nights of producing on Windows 98 computers, he moved on (via excursions into guitar music) to jazz. This wondrous music brought Opek to the Netherlands in 2011, where he devoted himself to the art of jazz drumming for 4 years. After that he landed in Dortmund with empty pockets. Eventhough he was filled with doubt, he kept firing up the machines, even the MPC had a bigger purpose than a doorstop or ashtray holder.
Expeditions then took Opek to almost every smoky backstage in Germany and Switzerland, especially as a drummer and producer in the trio ‘Schlakks, Opek & Razzmatazz’. He now shares an office space with ‘Cerm MC’ aka. ‘Cmern’. This is how the joint project ‘Cmern & Opsay’ came into being, where even a serious word about bumpy beats is allowed to fall.
The greyness of the city is and remains the inspiration and drive for Opek to create even more cozy sounds. And so he continues to create hits that could be played in a museum in 400 years, provided that the USB sticks will last.“
1. Intro
2. The Lighthouse
3. Finders, Keepers 03:46 video
4. Elevations
5. Tim Skit
6. Copy That
7. No Coincidence
8. Michi Skit
9. Codes
10. Out Here
DRUMS, SAX & TROMPONE RECORDED AT IFPOM BOCHUM
ALL MUSIC ARRANGED, PRODUCED AND MIXED BY OPEK
MASTERED - LEON MACHE
ARTWORK - PARISSA CHARGI & DIE OTTOS
PHOTO - CERM
