Paper Tiger - All Over The Place (Opaque White LP)

Paper Tiger’s All Over the Place is a moody record, but also muscular—with strong kick patterns, spare but catchy vocal sampling, and short songs that make their mark then make an exit. Paper manages a nostalgia without sentimentalism, a 90s-style urgency and earnestness. The lead single, “A Different Trish,” features some drum and bass patterns that could score a new Run Lola Run sprint scene; it’s a dark, tightly-wound, electronic universe built and dismantled in 3 minutes and 21 seconds. Paper Tiger has a long list of credits as a hip hop producer, but working solo allows his style room to maneuver; All Over the Place explores everything from slow, drumless ambient compositions to hard, dark dance music. There’s a unifying sensibility, though: the chord progressions lean melancholy, textured timbres feel a little like grainy film, and distinct song sections reveal his pop fluency. For this record Paper set aside some of his digital rig to work with hardware instruments, in part beca