HEAT RISING: Bay-area producers Friendzone drift from noise and hardcore bands to cloud-rap

by Aaron Zorgel

February 6, 2013

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Producers are an integral part of music creation, but so few of these sonic gurus get the recognition they deserve. HEAT RISING looks at the best beats by an up-and-coming producer, and talks about where they’re from (ROOTS), what they’ve done (RESUME), and why they’re an exciting presence in music today (REASONS TO WATCH).

ROOTS: The members of East Bay-area duo Friendzone haven’t always made hip-hop their musical focus. James Laurence and Dylan Reznick first worked together in the chaotic noise act Destroy Tokyo, a band that would evolve into the Bay-area noise rock specialists Religious Girls. Laurence and Reznick left the band before it became Religious Girls, and started experimenting with electronic pop music independently, before converging as Friendzone. Their earliest material, such as February 2011’s “JD,” sounds like off-kilter dance music, but within the year they would shift their focus towards producing rap instrumentals, after linking up with another Bay-area creative force.

Friendzone reached out to cloud-rap duo Main Attrakionz through Twitter, and once Squadda B and MondreM.A.N. found out that Reznick and Laurence were locals, the group began collaborating on the collaborative two-track EPPerfect Skies. The Perfume-sampling title track features blissful synths, reverberated atmospheres, and the hazy, scatter-shot flow that has made Main Attrakionz the heirs to Lil B’s cloud-rap throne in the sky.

RESUME: Working with the Main Attrakions gave Friendzone notoriety with anyone tuned into the Bay-area scene, but the release of their instrumental mixtape Kuchibiru Network 2 garnered the duo high profile hat-tips from Fader, Nah Right, and Mishka NYC. Kuchibiru 2 features work by (and re-workings of) Marlee B, Skywlkr, Main Attrackionz, Shady Blaze, and Ryan Hemsworth, and it positions Friendzone at the center of a dreamy, otherworldly, and very based movement.

REASONS TO WATCH: Friendzone co-produced a track for A$AP Rocky’s Long.Live.A$AP, alongside Lord Flacko himself (that’s the PMF’s producer alias), and Hector Delgado. Long.Live.A$AP‘s tracklist boasts producer names like Hit-Boy, Danger Mouse, T-Minus, Noah “40” Shebib and fellow drowsy beat builder Clams Casino, and if Friendzone keep scoring major label placements, their name could soon hold as much clout as anyone on that list. Until then, toss on one of Friendzone’s mixtapes, turn your headphones way up, and bask in the self-satisfaction of being an early adopter.

Tags: Music, Dylan Reznick, HEAT RISING, James Laurence

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