Paces Lift & Ben Bounce, Preface to Quick Trigger

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Paces Lift & Ben Bounce

This Friday I am getting out of the way. In corresponding with Paces Lift on the intent behind the Preface to Quick Trigger mix, compiled by PL and Ben Bounce, his articulation of how the album and companion mix came together left nothing unsaid. Preface to Quick Trigger is a 57 minute collage of film score funk, high tension crime montage music, early electronic experimental, psychedelic folk, and science fiction radio melodrama from the personal sample vaults of Paces Lift and Ben Bounce. The artwork was done by Ted Feighan, aka Monster Rally.

Ben and I met at a hip hop night in St. Louis nearly 10 years ago hosted by DJ Who. We'd both be lugging our vinyl crates to the show and playing our own blends of classic and abstract hip hop. Out of that night, DJ Who founded a massive crew of DJ's called the Basement Sound System. Over years, the BSS hosted beat battles where Bounce and I would end up competing.

Out of those battles and our history with BSS, we gained a solid respect for each other and began collaborating with samples, vinyl and drums a few years ago. We're both record diggers, but where I'll sit in the store and listen to the entire LP before making a decision to spend $10 bucks, Ben is in the $.99 section grabbing crazy stacks without previewing anything. I'm cut from the electronic/downtempo side of beats that eventually finds its way to hip hop while Bounce is from the traditional/classic hip hop lineage.

Ben does this thing he called “30 in 30” where he makes 30 beats in 30 days with no interruptions. After I relocated to Seattle, I told him we should do “60 in 30” together and we'll pick the best and start to chip away at an album. It started to get pretty intense the deeper we got into the month because we were each wondering what the other person would send at the end of every night! After 30 days we actually had closer to 70 rough tracks. Out of that, Quick Trigger began.

Whether directly sampled or not, a lot of the compositions selected for this collage ended up inspiring Quick Trigger. These are part of the archive we were going through while compiling the samples to chop for the LP. Sneak listens of what Quick Trigger will sound like and is what led up to the albums production in terms of nuance and style. We sprinkled easter eggs throughout the mix as well paying homage to specific locations, historical individuals, ideas and themes we're interested in that didn't make it on the final record. This is the companion piece to Quick Trigger.

Paces Lift & Ben Bounce's Quick Trigger LP is out October 22 on Wax Thematique Records.