House Shoes "Let It Go" (LP)
June 19th, 2012 will mark the TRES Records release date for Let It Go – the debut LP from Detroit native House Shoes.
It feels wrong, though, to call this a ‘debut’ record because it doesn’t sound like a first-try. Official debut, or not, House Shoes is not new. He released the now treasure-hunted Jay Dee Unreleased EP (1996), and Phat Kat’s classic Dedication to the Suckers (1999) on his own imprint. He’s produced for the late Big Proof (D12), J Dilla, Elzhi, and Danny Brown. He’s DJ’ed for Black Milk, Guilty Simpson, Mayer Hawthorne, Slum Village, and too many more to list.
Technically, however, this is his debut LP. One that hip-hop ‘know-somethings’ have been asking for (for years). One he’s probably been holding on to for a while. One he’s finally letting go.
Let It Go is a full-length album boasting features by the ‘heavyweights’ and the ‘hungry’ alike; balanced between artists accustomed to hip-hop limelight, and those still chasing it.
The project bats with a heavy-handed Motown roster. Detroit-bred collaborators include Big Tone, Moe Dirdee, Black Milk, Guilty Simpson, and Danny Brown, among others. Los Angeles (Oh No, MED, The Alchemist, Co$$), Norfolk (Nottz), St. Louis (Black Spade), New York (Roc Marciano), and Chicago (Chali 2na, of Jurassic 5) pinch-hit throughout the project.
Songs like ‘Dirt feat. Oh No, Alchemist, and Roc Marciano and ‘Everything (Modern Family) feat. Fatt Father’ are tough to picture on the same project if listened to separately. In the context of Let It Go, however, they feel blood related and well placed.
Shoes delivers an album that sound like an album (and not a mixtape) – no small feat in the topography of today’s music. He blends the songs, instrumentals, and interludes into a sequence that sounds like they all belong to something bigger than their time stamp and signature. Individually, the songs are strong; soaked in that neck-snapping, gritty-drummed, trouble-water-soul-sampled thing that makes hip hop magnetic. To dissect the album into its parts would miss the point, though.
The triumph of Let It Go is the full hour of music, not any fraction of the 60-some-minute run time.
(Taken from one sheet)
Artist: House Shoes
Title: Let It Go
Cat #: TR396-085
UPC #: 181057000745
Format: 2LP
Condition: New
Track List
SIDE A
1. Let It Go (the Beginning) feat. Shafiq Husayn
2. Empire / Get Down
3. Goodfellas To Bad Boys feat. Moe Dirdee / Dank Interlude
4. Dirt feat. Oh No, The Alchemist, and Roc Marciano / Jeedo Interlude
5. Time feat. Big Tone / Hex Interlude
SIDE B
6. Crazy feat. Black Milk and Guilty Simpson / BahBahBahBah
7. Last Breath feat. Nottz, Oh No, and MED / Mayer & Shoes
8. Keep On feat. Co$$ aka Cashus King / Helluva
9. Sweet feat. Danny Brown / Quelle Interlude
SIDE C
10. So Different feat. Chali 2na / Moody Interlude
11. Everything (Modern Family) feat. Fatt Father / Without You
12. Sunrise feat. Black Spade / Love
13. Trouble feat. Moe Dirdee and MarvWon / Royce Interlude
14. Nails feat. Quelle Chris and Guilty Simpson / Broken
SIDE D
15. Castles (tHE SKY IS OURS) feat. Jimetta Rose / My Brother
16. Cry Now / Gone
17. Roller Coaster feat. SelfSays and Fat Albert Einstein
18. Empire Reprise feat. Sam Beaubien of Will Sessions (Bonus Track)