8/8/2019 WiseBloodPieceforJenesisPB (1)

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/wisebloodpieceforjenesispb-1 1/1

Wise Blood and the Future of Bedroom SoulBy Patrick Bowman

The 2000’s have seen the rise of the laptop artist, the bedroom composer, and the “samplesmith,”“musicians” who create symphonies out of copyrights and pillage the past to construct the new.This broad development has turned taste into the mash-up architect’s greatest weapon and

scarcest resource.

While Chris Laufman, a.k.a. Pittsburgh’s soulfully poignant collage artist Wise Blood, has tastethat some beat makers can only dream of, his songs are not endless parades of reference readysamples, nor are they ambient clouds of noise masquerading as melody. With an almost uncannyknack for composition and superior song writing technique, Laufman’s style is an otherworldlyconvergence of the twain, producing expressionistic soul-pop mosaics built around deceptivelysimple yet perfectly picked samples and thick, sweaty, hip-hop beats.

The Houston transplant literally appeared out of nowhere, suddenly popping up on (local musicblog) the Pittsburgh Music Report last April for an interview. With four fully formed songs, onemysteriously grainy picture and a lone Soundcloud page in tow, Laufman confidently discussedhis method: “I will use one sample or rhythm that I hear and everything is crafted around that. Ilisten to something and say ‘there’s a song in that.’” He continued, “I like old Prince songs like‘Kiss,’ He describes situations in a weird way, like being involved with someone sexually andsaying ‘I want to be your girlfriend. Lyrically, that’s what I go for.”

This process was never more apparent than on “B.I.G. E.G.O.”, a song built around the drumsample of Led Zeppelin’s “When the Levee Breaks,” utilizing one of rock and roll’s most famousbreakbeats as the track’s thunderous, most vital component. In front an angelic organ hum(probably lifted from the intro to Prince’s “Let’s Go Crazy”) and stuttering cluster of classicalstrings, Laufman allows his fragile falsetto to almost melt into the background, seductively tellingthe listener “these drugs are kicking in, I hope you understand/cause at the end of the night, your gonna, mmm, come home with me.”

It’s neo-soul by way of a bedroom symphony, coalescing into a simmer sex-pot of lo-fi

androgynous desire. It sounds more like a kid’s fever dream than anything else, a forbiddenfantasy that evaporates as soon as the track concludes. Regardless, Wise Blood hadsuccessfully synthesized what he endearingly described as “future music” into living, breathingform. Subsequent tracks “STRT SRNS” and “2 ALL THE GIRLS WHO HAVE TRUSTED ME”continued the evolution by cranking up the soul to eleven and ended up stoking the flames of blogosphere buzz machine to almost unhealthy levels of hype.

After Laufman’s appearance on PMR, and the subsequent release of his debut EP “+” , thingsbegan moving fairly quickly. He was signed by LA-based boutique label Heart Music Group(home to Fol Chen, Baths, and Coolrunnings) and fawned over by taste-making website PitchforkMedia. By the time early October rolled around, three of the five tracks on his debut EP werepopping up in Hype Machine’s top ten daily, he was prepping his first 7’’ single “SOLO (4CLAIRE)” through Transparent Records and getting ready for his first performance at the I GuessI’m Floating/Lefse Records showcase at CMJ’s Music Marathon in October.

And with the promise of a debut full-length in early 2011, Wise Blood will only be working harder from here on out. Without a doubt, it’s a load of momentum behind a Pittsburgh artist who iscarving out his own little corner of the universe and producing music that honestly sounds likenothing else. Don’t worry about Chris Laufman, though. Sometimes hype exists for a very, verygood reason.