Natural Elements - NOW We're Talking!!

Man, I have been waiting at the door for this one to arrive...!! As you may recall, I've been documenting and pining for Natural Elements' brilliant yet unreleased demo tracks (see here, mainly, but also here and here)... And now, thanks to Chopped Herring Records, six of those vintage tracks are no longer unreleased!

The Lost Demos EP Vol. 1 ("Vol. 1?" "VOLUME 1?!" That implies there will be a "Vol. 2!" Woohoo!) is just shipping now on "very limited vinyl." Specifically, that breaks down into three unique pressings: 75 copies on gold vinyl, 75 copies on white (white) vinyl, and 150 on traditional black, for a grand total of 300 EPs. And they all come in a phat sticker cover.

So what have we got here?! Let's look at it track by track:

1) I Got Your Heart - I wrote about this one in my HHC article. It's also known as "What My Crew Do To You" and features the early line-up of Voodoo, KA (instead of A-Butta) and L-Swift. Thanks to the record label, we now this was produced in 1995 by (just like you'd expect) Charlemagne.

2) Triple Team - Another one I wrote about in the HHC article, another one featuring KA instead of A-Butta, and another one produced by Charlemagne in 1995.

3) Every Day - Now here's one I've never even heard of before! According to the label, it's again from 1995 and produced by Charlemagne. Fucking nice.

4) Life Ain't Fair (Original) - Another '95 one produced by Charlemagne that I wrote about in my article. It's interesting that this specifies "Original." That's because it's completely different from the version I have a snippet of. There's no R&B chorus, and this beat is much harder, giving the song an entirely different feel.

5) Machine Gun Prayer - This one's a Mr. Voodoo solo song, produced by LDR Louie Ortiz - the same guy who produced Voodoo's later EP, Let the World Know. The year of production is said to be unknown on this one, but if it's by Mr. Ortiz, it might be a little more recent than the other material on here.

6) Puttin' In Work (Demo Tape Version) - Another song that specifies this as a specific version, implying that there are others... This one is an L-Swift solo track, and the oldest one on the EP, dating all the way back to 1993; and it's again produced by Charlemagne.

Poor A-Butta isn't on here at all. The first four tracks are so old they feature the KA version of the line-up, and then he doesn't get a solo joint. I can't complain, though, everything here is great, and KA brings a unique element - if you'll forgive the pun - to the crew that works great. A-Butta and L-Swift, after all, sorta rode in the same lane. Voodoo was complex, L made it smooth and KA came with the ruggedness. Butta and Swift were both smooth. They were also both fantastic at it, so it was all good, but it's cool to experience more of the original line-up.

You may've noticed, I haven't really addressed how good the songs are... that's because this is from Natural Elements at their prime - it goes without saying that everything on here is must-have level material. And the sound quality ranks an A+, too. You may've heard shoddy radio rips of a couple of these songs before, but you can throw them shits out now! These are the clean, clear and unabridged original recordings sounding perfect (except the L-Swift song seems like it may've been sourced from an actual cassette; but it still sounds surprisingly good) on brand new vinyl.

Now Chopped Herring as already begun taking pre-orders on their next release, and it's not Natural Elements Vol. 2. It's Grimm Teachaz, an interesting group with some dope production that got jammed up in Jive Records back in '93. But if Vol. 2 isn't their current release or even their next release, we can hopefully expect it relatively soon. So, what might we have to look forward to?

Well, my HHC article covered the nine (total) known NE tracks that have yet to be recorded; and that didn't cover solo material, which Chopped Herring is clearly open to including. So, that means 5 of the tracks I wrote about there are still pending, plus the version of "Life Ain't Fair" with Bridge. Now "Survive" was released, albeit unofficially, on the Word of Mouth EP, so we're not worried about that one. And "Supreme Domination" was on the 10 Year Anniversary album - BUT that was a CD only release, so it would still be a very welcome inclusion on any vinyl Chopped Herring was willing to put out.

And that also leaves us with the great demo tracks "Knick Knack," "Freak Freak Y'All," "My Nature," and the more contemporary unreleased song, "MTV (More Than Vocals)." Plus we know Mr. Voodoo, at least, has a bunch more killer solo joints that haven't been released (he could have a solo EP all to himself, which would be awesome), and there's always the non-Demo Tape Version of "Puttin' In Work." And of course, there's no telling what jewels might be in their vaults that nobody at all has heard of, but could still come out and blow us away. After all, "Every Day" was certainly a new one on us. Who knows? Maybe there's even going to be a Vol. 3. I'm giddy.

Natural Elements, Just In Time for the Holidays!

Natural Elements are now set to drop on December 1st. Remember that project on Traffic I was talking about a few months ago? Well, there's now a date, album cover and an official track-listing. It looks like we're a go!

So, this is gonna be rewarding. The track-listing is 20 tracks deep; which is 6 songs longer than the leaked Tommy Boy album. So we already know we're in for something extra. In fact, it's only sort of Tommy Boy's shelved album... Actually, it seems to be a random assortment of NE tracks, including a large chunk of the Tommy Boy stuff. Once again it gets confusing and brings up almost as many questions as answers, so let's break it down song by song and see what we can work out:

1) "NE Season" - This was track #12 on the leaked version, so already we're out of sequence with the Tommy Boy LP, but that's the least of the differences we're going to see moving forward.

2) "2 Tons" - The big Tommy Boy single, of course, and one of their best ever.

3) "Bust Mine" - The old Dolo single? Yup. It seems like we're going into a bit of a 'Natural Elements' Greatest Hits' run here.

4) "Tri-Boro" - 'Greatest Hits...'

5) "Paper Chase" - More 'Greatest Hits.' I wish they would've left these off to make room for more unreleased material; but there's plenty of that still to come, so can't complain too much.

6) "Supreme Domination" - Whoa. An unreleased Fortress-era track (that I wrote about in HHC, here)? NOW we're talkin'!

7) "Livin It Up" - Second single from Tommy Boy, though surprisingly it wasn't on the album as leaked. But Traffic threw it on here.

8) "Shine" - Back to 'Greatest Hits' steez. ::shrug::

9) "Off Beat Bop" - Whoa! Never heard this before... A "new" song that wasn't on the Tommy Boy leak - sweet!!

10) "By Nature" - This was on the album, and has been floating around the 'net, often titled "Take a Trip Into the Mind."

11) "Intricate Plot" - This was on the album. Remember, though; this is the first time these "album" tracks are getting a legit release, so even though I say "this was on the album," it's still completely, previously unreleased.

12) "Survive" - Traffic's taking it back again. This is an old song from the early NE days that'd only seen release on the bootleg EP from Word of Mouth (which I detail here).

13) "Second Hand Smoke" - This was on the album.

14) "Tell Me Something Good" - This was on the album.

15) "NE Thing" - This was on the album.

16) "Paper Chase Pt. 2" - This was on the album, and also the Word of Mouth boot, where it was titled "Paper Chase 2005."

17) "Livin It Up Pt. 2" - Again, this was released on single from Tommy Boy, but wasn't featured on their version of the album. But it's on this one. Nothing new, but the more the merrier, right?

18) "NE Definitely" - This was on the album and the Word of Mouth EP.

19) "More Than Vocals (MTV)" - A track that NE recorded after being dropped from Tommy Boy that's been floating around the 'net, and another one I covered in my HHC piece.

20) "First Of All" - Odd that the album's intro is stuck on as the last track, but what the hey? This seems to be slightly shorter than the version included on the leak AND the EP (I refer you to my EP review, again, for the differences between the two). Is this possibly a third edit? Or maybe it's just mixed a little faster.

So, Traffic (who seemed to be partnered up with a label called Kings Link Recordz for this release) has definitely gone gonzo in including plenty of extras along with the proper album track-listing... but unfortunately to extreme of excluding a bunch of songs from the LP! Yeah, you read that right. Six album cuts were left off of this release, which is all the more frustrating when you look at those damn "Greatest Hits" songs they've got on there, taking up room. What Natural Elements fan doesn't already have "Shine" and "Bust Mine?" "I Don't Care Anymore" and their ill phone sex song would've been much more welcome than some generic reissue songs thrown in the mix.

I guess maybe some of those songs are considered unfinished? L-Swift said the album was never properly mixed down and that the leaked version we heard were "skeleton songs" (see this post for more on that, including Swift's full quote). He even said "I Don't Care Anymore" was supposed to feature SuperCat, and I guess if they didn't record his part back in 1999, it's unlikely they would've called him into the studio in 2009. So I guess they made some "executive decisions" (though the tracks they left off don't sound particularly unfinished for the most part to me). I guess I can sorta accept that. They promise us that these are "the original masters secured and remastered," and the soundclips they've put out there (like here) do sound nice and clean.

It would kick ass if this came out on double LP, but it'll probably just be CD. But despite my qualms and the ways this could've been better (less stuff everybody's got and more previously unreleased material, this is still one hell of an awesome release. Heck, if this sells enough, maybe they could be talked into releasing a Volume 2 with all the rest of the songs.

Update 12/11/09 - Now that this disc is shipping and I've gotten my copy, I compared "First of All" to see if this is the version on the Word of Mouth EP or the Tommy Boy leak. Interestingly, it's the Tommy Boy leak, but they fade it out about a minute before the song's actually over. So if you've got the EP, at least you'll be getting the different version when you purchase this album... but yeah, it's missing the final third. Weird.

Charlemagne's Eva Bomb

In 1998, when it looked like Mr. Voodoo, L-Swift and A-Butta were hitting it big with their Tommy Boy signing, Charlemagne was making short-lived power moves of his own. Since Natural Elements were no longer his label's showcase act (and Raidermen and Nightbreed were being sadly neglected), Charlemagne signed a pretty impressive deal for Fortress Entertainment.

Fortress Records was merging with Nervous Records, to become a separate subdivision (like Wreck or Weeded Records). And Charlemagne was going to be the signature producer. They even made one of those cool, Nervous cartoon variation logos (right). They ran big, full-color ads in The Source and all the other rap mags. The big debut was going to be two 12"'s, recorded by the label's first signees - both produced of course, by Charlemagne - released at the same time in January, 1999.

Since both records came out on the same day, we'll go by catalog number and look at NE-FS 20340 first. Speaking of catalog numbers, you'll notice they started special, new hyphenated catalog numbers for this sub-label.

Ok, so NE-FS 20340 was the debut (and final, to date) 12" by an MC named K-Bomb, called "Bump This." It's got a pretty funky percussion line, with a lot of snaps and what-not mixed in with the drums, laying underneath an echoing horn loop. Lyrically, it's on the freestyle tip, and is kinda underwhelming, especially to anyone who might've picked this up hoping for some NE-style wizardy. The B-side, "Stories I Know (Chico)," works a little better. The two verses are separate street stories (one about a guy named Chico and one about a girl named Alexandria, who apparently needs a better agent), with a strong Kool G Rap influence in his rhyme pattern. The beat's a bit better, too; though very similar. It's got simpler, straight New York-style drums like you'd expect from Charlemagne, and a similar, but harder, echoing horn loop. B-side definitely wins, and while K-Bomb isn't amazing, this is a pretty good 90's 12" by anybody's standards.

NE-FS2031, then, is Eva Flo(spelled "Eva Flow" on the snippet tape)'s "I'm the One." It's a little more on the funkier, off-beat tip, with a head-nodding collection of short samples, and Eva kicking fresh rhymes, with a voice and flow sort of like a less extreme Scott Lark. It's definitely more playful. The B-side, "Whut You Smokin," on the other hand, is more of a disappointment. It features an unappealing synth sample and some generic rhymes about smoking weed. I mean, it's ok, and he tries to do something a little different on the hook. But this is definitely a song you'd talk over if you heard this come up on a mix-tape.

Both 12"s came with Vocal, Clean Edit and Instrumental versions of each song, but I guess they didn't perform like expected - and they were pretty underwhelming, though the better song on each record stood the test of time rather well - because that was the end of "The Nervous/ Fortress alliance." And these wound up being the last records released on Fortress in any capacity. Oh well. Charlemagne clearly landed on his feet in his production career; but it was definitely sad to see Fortress come to an end, especially without much of a bang.

Natural Elements "EP" - What Is It, Exactly?

The last Natural Elements release (at least as a collective unit), wasn't even a legit release. It was a 2005 EP, actually titled EP, on Word of Mouth Records, which is a pure, illegitimate bootleg label. So you could be commended for staying away from it altogether... but six previously unreleased Natural Elements cuts on vinyl? Let's face it, we're not staying away.

Now, it's commonly understood that these are 6 tracks from their unreleased Tommy Boy LP (but hopefully not unreleased for much longer, right Traffic? ::wink, wink::), but that's only... mostly true. So, as part of my continued efforts to dispel all mystery surrounding Natural Elements' material, let's compare our EP with the "never mixed down" "pre-production" "album that people have:"

We start out with the inconspicuously titled "Intro." It's essentially a fresh hook, repeated, freestyled and riffed on over and over, by the three members over a fresh beat. It sounds good, if a bit repetitious. And, yes, it's the same introductory track that's featured on the LP... except it's about thirty seconds shorter. Most of the lines are the same, and the instrumental's essentially the same, but I'd say it's been completely re-performed. Where the beat breaks down is different, some of the lines are different. Check the endings, for instance... the EP version has them saying "word up" and stuff, and you hear L and A pretty prominently. But the LP version ends with Mr. Voodoo declaring, "time's up, baby! We back, motherfuckers!" It really sounds like, though they're performing the same song, that it's an entirely different recording session on each release.

Track two is "Definitely;'" this was the last song on the LP. Then side A wraps up with "Second Hand Smoke" (track 7 on the LP). They're some smooth tracks, especially "Second Hand," but both are the same on the EP as they are on the LP.

But now here's where things really get interesting: The first song on side B, "Survival," isn't from the Tommy Boy LP at all. Remember that Natural Elements snippet tape I referenced in my last Fear Of the Rap! column for HHC? It's on there! That means this is actually some of their earliest material (though on the snippet tape, Fortress titles it "Survive").

Then we get to "Paper Chase 2005." Despite the extra five years Word of Mouth tried to bless it with in their titling, this is the same "Paper Chase" remix that was on the LP. It's pretty fuckin' slick, though.

Finally we hit the "Free Style Outro." The LP didn't have an outro... what is this? Well, this is actually "NE Angels," the last song on L-Swift's 2003 mix-CD, Cross Country; the only song that featured A and Voo. This is also the only song here that had actually seen a pretty legit release beforehand.

So, all in all, EP is an interesting, more-varied-than-you-probably-would've-guessed mix... pretty much a must-have for any NE fan who can abide a bootleg. A couple of these tracks have never been heard before or since, even within the context of the unreleased music that's been floating around amongst the fans; and the ones that have were never available on vinyl before... and sadly, I'm not too optimistic about the prospect of Traffic's upcoming release dropping on anything but CD. So this isn't an alternative to the soon-to-be-released LP so much as a companion piece.

You Should Pay Close Attention When We Drop It

Update 9/27/11: The HHC site seems to be down, so I've posted the article below... Click 'em to enlarge 'em to a readable size.

The new issue of HHC Digital drops today, with a special double-length column (Fear Of the Rap! pages 18 & 19) by yours truly. Why is it double-length? 'Cause I needed the space to make a definitive, set-the-record-straight guide to the Natural Elements' unreleased tracks. There is possibly more misinformation online about them than any other hip-hop group ever... And I also had access to some pretty exclusive details, so even the really knowledgeable heads should learn something by clicking here. 8)

The rest of the issue's dope, too. There's a big look back on the DMC tournies throughout the years. I'm still reading most of it myself.

Oh, and by the way. You know their unreleased Tommy Boy LP (which I touch on briefly in the column)? Well, it's not gonna be unreleased much longer. We've got it from Traffic themselves that they've rescued it and are putting it out this year. Quote: "Yes, 12"s were released back in 90-whatever to promote the shelved album, this is that album. not a recent effort by some old, fat rappers trying to sound jiggy." ...That's a bit harsh; the new 2Face stuff sounds dope; not pseudo-jiggy. lol But, hey, it's all good news.

Hopefully, this will be different than the bootleg people have heard, too. In an interview for Unkut, L-Swift has said, "The album people have, it was never mixed down. Nothing was mixed down. The song 'I'm Not Sure Anymore' (Track 3 of the Natural Elements Unreleased Tommy Boy Album), we were going to have Super Cat on that one. Those are skeletons of songs. They were in pre-production period." So, hopefully the Traffic album will have all the meat on it.