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by
20 May, 2003@12:00 am
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    Next to DJ Spinna, Ohio’s Fat Jon is perhaps the hardest working beat-machine in underground / instrumental hip-hop, continually pumping out full-length opuses of soothing, blunted jazz, and on his latest effort Lightweight Heavy, ain’t nothing changed. 

    While each of his previous instrumental releases have had a recurring theme, Lightweight Heavy is no different, with Jon injecting his own personal philosophies on life into each track. While each track is almost all strictly instrumental, Jon pens liner notes explaining the “deeper meaning” behind each song (also translated in Japanese as this is a Japan-only release). However, while the lack of vocals will leave you with room to ponder Jon’s theories, most will instead enjoy getting high or making love while his heavy-drum beats bang over somber pianos and relaxing horns. 

    The first half of the album is excellent, starting from the opener “Talk To Me”, where you can truly feel the sadness of the lonely female begging forgiveness in the songs only 3-word lyric. The hard-hitting cymbals and jazzy bassline of “Dreamers”; the uptempo rolling summer breeze of pianos on “Day”; the dug-up, 30-year old two-line stanza propelling the sample collage of “Everywhere” are each elements trademarking Fat Jon’s sound, making for a pleasurable listening experience.      

    Lightweight Heavy is not Jon’s best release to date (peep Five Deez Koolmotor for some truly devastating production), its damn good and certainly another strong addition to his catalog. Fans of artists like DJ Shadow and fellow Ohio superstar RJD2 will find this right up their alley. However unlike them, Fat Jon’s sound does at times fall into realms of monotony, and he does deliver a few passable joints, such as the redundant “Point A 2 B”, or the Gregorian-Monk chanting of “Her” (too ‘Enigma’ for this critic), Jon is right there as one of the strongest instrumentalists of the moment, and currently underground hip-hop’s best kept secret.

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