WTF!? A conceptual album based on Russian samples? That’s nothing the Alchemist would need, one could say. After some contract work for Lil Wayne and the lot, he sure made his pile, and so he could easily go off the radar à la Andre-Romel-Young and enjoy his life as a platinum-producer. Instead, ALC still hustles his beats as actively in the days of Rawkus and Game Recordings, spits out a proper album together with Curren$y for free, spreads the gangrene-craziness together with Oh No or tours through Russia with his step brother Evidence. According to the legend, this is where the origin of »Russian Roulette« is to be found – at their stop in Moscow, the Russian fans proved themselves as good hosts and offered the former class enemy a pile of treasures from the crates of the Eastern Bloc. Amongst them was not only the soundtrack to »Rocky IV«, but also Prog-Rock-, Folk- and Jazz- records from the shallows of the Melodiya-archives. Because what the Alchemists offers in 30 tracks and only 45 minutes is a psychedelic piece of patchwork par excellence. Since it was planned as a purely instrumental album, the guest-rappers only serve merely as a decorative accessory. The focus is on the beats. They are hardly longer than two minutes, smoothly float from one track to the other and present themselves rather sample- than drum-based. For ALC, it’s progressive as never before and could almost be called his personal »Donuts«. Hence, it shall not even bother us that the Jackson Brothers have seemed to have served as a conceptual role model with their Library-Series (»Beat Konducta In India«, »Dr. No’s Oxperiment«, anyone?). While The Alchemists’ producer records from before stood out through their high-level guests and their musical ambivalence, he’s now going for a stroke of genius with »Russian Roulette«. In the end, it’s ground works that the Alchemist apparently still needed. As our Sovjet-friend Borat would say: »I like! High five!«
Russian Roulette
