New Native Rapper: “Track Maker”

Well, this is exciting — Kyoto’s Native Rapper, who has been making some of the best genre-hopping music out of Japan in recent memory, has teamed up with Trekkie Trax, and will release an EP through them next week. We could have just waited for Mass Maker to hit the download zone, but “Track Maker” is worth closing the week out on. Native Rapper has taken a lot of elements artists such as Tofubeats have embraced — vocal manipulation, genre blurring — and pushing it even further, resulting in some really thrilling music. “Track Maker” features sweet piano chords, trumpet flair and Native Rapper’s electro-charged vocals converging into one lovely sounding song, one celebrating, well, sound in general. Which is the other side of this — it’s a song about music, of creating through a PC and of watching a track maker do their thing and being in awe of it. This theme makes all of the familiar sounds — a sample you’ve heard pop up on your SoundCloud feed one too many times, for example — suddenly sweeter, as this is a tribute to all the people doing it on their own, from behind a laptop. And here’s Native Rapper, stepping up and doing just that with a shifty but above all else loving song. Listen above.