Seattle experimental hip-hop duo Shabazz Palaces have shared a new track titled "Ham Sandwich," which you can check out below. The brief track is backed by a relatively traditional boom bap beat, along with some wonderfully spacey and psychedelic production flourishes that would make Dan the Automator proud. Since the track cuts off so suddenly after just two minutes, this might just be a teaser for the actual song.
Shabazz Palaces shared the song earlier this morning, Dec. 31, through their Twitter account, along with this cryptic message: "Magic Makes the Music More." You can check out that tweet here:
Magic Makes the Music More https://t.co/xVAqkW0XHY
— Shabazz Palaces (@shabazzpalaces) December 31, 2014
You can check out Shabazz Palaces's "Ham Sandwich" here:
Shabazz Palaces's latest album Lese Majesty was released in July through Sub Pop Records. It was the duo's second studio album overall, following their 2011 debut Black Up. Lese Majesty was recently selected by Music Times as one of the 10 best albums of 2014. You can check out that complete list here.
"The materialism, individualism and superficiality shaping Western pop culture was ringing real corny to me," Shabazz Palaces member Ishmael Butler told Wondering Sound about the theme behind Lese Majesty. "We were calling bulls--t on that to an extent. We don't really say, 'That's weak' because individual people's choices aren't something to be clowned about. But we were looking toward the overall direction [in which] we're being led and talking about that."
"People call us experimental all the time," Butler says earlier on in the interview, "but for us it's not an experiment. Rather than be traditional, we adhere more to our imagination ... I don't really see a big gap between what we're doing and what other people are doing other than our instinct and personal style."
What do you think of Shabazz Palaces' "Ham Sandwich"? Let us know down in the comments section.
