Round that point, Doseone, the cLOUDDEAD member who guested on Appleseed’s last monitor, “Odessa,” had develop into an A&R for Mush, a small Cincinnati studio-turned-label that had put out plenty of cLOUDDEAD 10-inches. In 1999, Dose approached Aes and brokered a one-album deal, the main points of which had been outlined in a easy three-page contract. Aes had at all times been skeptical of labels; why signal something that might in all probability by no means pay the payments and finally complicate the enjoyable of constructing music? However, given the homespun success of his first two initiatives, the prospect to have another person cowl the price of full-color art work was persuasive. “I had about 20 songs,” he stated in a 2007 interview with Caught within the Crossfire. “I assumed, ‘Yeah, let’s simply put all of them on there,’ and that was the primary official file.”
There’s a ramshackle, lo-fi appeal to Float that feels speedy, as if every new thought that crossed by way of Aes’ thoughts immediately breaks containment. He and Blockhead, who produced about half the file (Aes himself supplied the opposite half), recorded the album on a Roland VS-880 digital workstation, a budget-friendly studio-in-a-box that’s nonetheless a slight step up from a cassette four-track. Each Aes and Blockhead (and Omega One, who contributed the beat for “Skip City”) composed on ASR-10 samplers however didn’t separate the stems of their beats, bouncing all the things as a stereo combine. Aes tracked his vocals and not using a stand, gripping a Shure SM-58, the stalwart, reasonably priced mic discovered at each reside venue, in his fist. There’s a tinny resonance coating Aes’ wealthy voice, and plosives abound, suggesting free, shambling periods shot by way of with a frantic, wide-eyed power.
It’s an awesome album. Aes fills almost each house with phrases, emphasizing particular strains with infinite layers of his voice and ad-libs zipping round within the background like agitated bees. There’s nearly no respiratory room, save for Blockhead’s three instrumental interludes, however even these—particularly “Dinner With Blockhead,” a somersaulting bandoneon loop perforated by tear-the-club-up drums—are packed to the gills.
