Posted 2 years ago

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you’re gonna want this record. lucky for you, it’s free J. Howells Werthman started off with the goal of making a ‘producer’ record, where one guy makes all the beats and then gets other guys to rap on the beats. Then he remembered that he kinda hates most ‘producer’ records.“We have a pretty extensive community of music makers and artists, guys that we’ve been doing shows with for years” says J. Howells Werthman (JHW), the 29-year-old Brooklyn native and co-founder of the Nuclear Family collective. “I wanted to make a project that featured everybody, to leave some evidence of all this talent. In the end, that became the theme of the record, and led me to the title of the thing: We Are Making Plans.”Of the album’s 17 tracks, all (with the exception of “Clamato”) were produced, recorded and mixed by JHW. 10 of the tracks feature contributions from rap collectives Nuk Fam, The New Rap Order, and The Dugout, as well as Lu…Rreals, Javelin, and Embedded Music’s Loer Velocity. The remaining tracks are jazz-influenced instrumental interludes and moody, beautiful compositions.The artwork for the record, masterminded by Nuk Fam’s own Tone Tank, is a reflection of the communal nature of the project. And it was quite a process. House photographer Vito Fun took individual pictures of the 18 emcees. The images were printed in life-size (fuck Kinko’s), then cut out and mounted on cardboard, then taped to wooden stakes and transported over fences and bridges to an abandoned lot on the Gowanus Canal where Vito and Tone had already painted the album’s title on a decaying brick wall. There the cut-outs were arranged and photographed for the final time, despite the day’s windy conditions and the rock-like soil that made the project of keeping the figures standing nearly impossible. The resulting cover image is a collage in real life with no need for Photoshop enhancement.Though this is JHW’s first solo release, his production credits in the past include the lion’s share of ILLER THAN THEIRS’ self-titled debut, as well as executive production credits on JUNK SCIENCE’s “Feeding Einstein” and “Gran’dad’s Nerve Tonic” and a series of remixes for JUNK SCIENCE.

you’re gonna want this record. lucky for you, it’s free

J. Howells Werthman started off with the goal of making a ‘producer’ record, where one guy makes all the beats and then gets other guys to rap on the beats. Then he remembered that he kinda hates most ‘producer’ records.

“We have a pretty extensive community of music makers and artists, guys that we’ve been doing shows with for years” says J. Howells Werthman (JHW), the 29-year-old Brooklyn native and co-founder of the Nuclear Family collective. “I wanted to make a project that featured everybody, to leave some evidence of all this talent. In the end, that became the theme of the record, and led me to the title of the thing: We Are Making Plans.”

Of the album’s 17 tracks, all (with the exception of “Clamato”) were produced, recorded and mixed by JHW. 10 of the tracks feature contributions from rap collectives Nuk Fam, The New Rap Order, and The Dugout, as well as Lu…Rreals, Javelin, and Embedded Music’s Loer Velocity. The remaining tracks are jazz-influenced instrumental interludes and moody, beautiful compositions.

The artwork for the record, masterminded by Nuk Fam’s own Tone Tank, is a reflection of the communal nature of the project. And it was quite a process. House photographer Vito Fun took individual pictures of the 18 emcees. The images were printed in life-size (fuck Kinko’s), then cut out and mounted on cardboard, then taped to wooden stakes and transported over fences and bridges to an abandoned lot on the Gowanus Canal where Vito and Tone had already painted the album’s title on a decaying brick wall. There the cut-outs were arranged and photographed for the final time, despite the day’s windy conditions and the rock-like soil that made the project of keeping the figures standing nearly impossible. The resulting cover image is a collage in real life with no need for Photoshop enhancement.

Though this is JHW’s first solo release, his production credits in the past include the lion’s share of ILLER THAN THEIRS’ self-titled debut, as well as executive production credits on JUNK SCIENCE’s “Feeding Einstein” and “Gran’dad’s Nerve Tonic” and a series of remixes for JUNK SCIENCE.