Round that point, Doseone, the cLOUDDEAD member who guested on Appleseed’s closing monitor, “Odessa,” had develop into an A&R for Mush, a small Cincinnati studio-turned-label that had put out numerous cLOUDDEAD 10-inches. In 1999, Dose approached Aes and brokered a one-album deal, the main points of which have been outlined in a easy three-page contract. Aes had at all times been skeptical of labels; why signal something that might most likely by no means pay the payments and in the end complicate the enjoyable of constructing music? However, given the homespun success of his first two tasks, the possibility to have another person cowl the price of full-color art work was persuasive. “I had about 20 songs,” he stated in a 2007 interview with Caught within the Crossfire. “I assumed, ‘Yeah, let’s simply put all of them on there,’ and that was the primary official file.”
There’s a ramshackle, lo-fi appeal to Float that feels instant, as if every new thought that crossed via Aes’ thoughts immediately breaks containment. He and Blockhead, who produced about half the file (Aes himself offered the opposite half), recorded the album on a Roland VS-880 digital workstation, a budget-friendly studio-in-a-box that’s nonetheless a slight step up from a cassette four-track. Each Aes and Blockhead (and Omega One, who contributed the beat for “Skip City”) composed on ASR-10 samplers however didn’t separate the stems of their beats, bouncing all the pieces as a stereo combine. Aes tracked his vocals with no stand, gripping a Shure SM-58, the stalwart, inexpensive mic discovered at each reside venue, in his fist. There’s a tinny resonance coating Aes’ wealthy voice, and plosives abound, suggesting unfastened, shambling periods shot via with a frantic, wide-eyed vitality.
It’s an amazing album. Aes fills practically each house with phrases, emphasizing particular strains with infinite layers of his voice and ad-libs zipping round within the background like agitated bees. There’s virtually no respiratory room, save for Blockhead’s three instrumental interludes, however even these—particularly “Dinner With Blockhead,” a somersaulting bandoneon loop perforated by tear-the-club-up drums—are packed to the gills.
