Album: "The Uproot" (Side B) [Demo Version] Artist / Produced by: Dutchyyy (fka Dutchy aka Dutchmassive) Runtime: 0:29:26 Created: 2013-2015 Year Released: Officially Unreleased Cover & Back Art by: TARTWURK (Tyrell Waiters) Notes: The Uproot was meant to be the album released after "Chill Gawd, Chill" & before "Traversal". The Laptop containing the full & finalized version of the album was destroyed by water damage. All that remained was a single Audio track of a demo version I exported in the early stages to test how the album sounded from front to back after removing 4 songs "The Scramble" / "Evolution of a shrug" / "Lamb's Bread" & "OneForShoes" at the last minute to place on "Chill Gawd, Chill" SIDE B / TRACKLIST: 00:00 - SHAWANGUNK STOMP (Son of Ziggy) 01:23 - SPRING CHOPS IN THE FALL 06:39 - YEBICHAI SWEAT 11:26 - THE ANCIENTS 14:05 - THE MEDITATION BLOCK 16:34 - THE PROTAGONIST 19:13 - THE TAME 23:49 - THE MOUNTAIN 26:40 - THE RUDE AWAKENING. ------------------------------------ Album Review by: John Morrison (2020) Created in the wake of great struggle and turmoil, MC/producer Dutchyyy aka Dutchmassive’s latest project The Uproot is a testament to the power of music, family and personal resilience. In 2013, Dutch found himself on the tail end of a stint living in California. Facing the loss of his job, apartment and relationship, Dutch wound up in Tampa, Florida and eventually New York, couch-surfing, staying with friends and trying to figure out his next move. “My man Sam Sleezy invited me to visit in NY. He spent months trying to motivate me to record new raps, but all I wanna to do was make beats. I recorded a few tracks that Apathy gave me (still unreleased) as well as my track for the SleezbagMekalekTape, meanwhile hiding outside alone in his hidden forest backyard. I was making beats, then my pops (who I had not spoken with in over a decade) invited to me visit him for the weekend in upstate NY, so I accepted, When I arrived I was surprised to find out my pops was the caretaker of one of the illest nature preserves in upstate NY on the top of the Shawangunk ridge mountains.” Tucked away in one of the most beautiful natural environments in the country, Dutch began to work on The Uproot, a rich and highly personal work that showcases his ability to craft moving instrumentals. One can’t help but envision the landscapes that inspired Dutch’s process. “My back and front yard had ice caves, waterfalls, forests and scenery that looked like it came from Tomb Raider meets Lord Of The Rings, on top of that, my pops’ knowledge and collection of music is next level. So I spent a year alone, building with him, inspired by this sacred mountain, creating music all day and night long, in the attic, in the basement, near the waterfall. During this time, I rejected and pulled myself out of any beat collective and just wanted to focus on art without any politics period, I rejected what society had programmed into me.” With tracks like “The Firelighter” and it’s woozy, dreamy, pitched-down vocal samples or the jazzy minimalism of “The Stone”, The Uproot is full of chilled-out beats and introspective sounds. Featuring guest spots from Simon Sverdlov & Equal Status, Son Of Ziggy, and Sleepyeyes, the album maintains a free-flowing, meditative tone. Putting his mastery at twisting and flipping samples with ecstatic fervor on full display, Dutchyyy has maintained his status as a formidable voice in the contemporary beat scene. Experiencing loss, resetting and rebuilding is never easy, but to pull so much beautiful, life-affirming music out of the process is a feat in it’s own right. Looking back from the other side of that time in his life and all its challenges, Dutch reminds us in his own words that creating The Uproot was all about “losing everything, breaking down, and building up again.” ------------------------------------- Backstory: Shawangunk Stomp: The story of Dutchyyy’s Uproot. Written & Published by: Mecca83 https://medium.com/@SolarSounds/shawangunk-stomp-the-story-of-dutchyyys-uproot-4235a4eb66ff ------------------------------------- In Closing, While I did recover the Hard drive that contained the original sessions for "The Uproot" in 2019, Ableton couldn't locate most of drums and some of the samples. which is a disaster as my production style is centered around sidechain compression routed all over the place and changing the drums completely changes the movement and intentional swing/groove of the track. However, in May of 2020 I was contacted by my friend and fellow producer "Mecca83" who convinced me to take the time to finalize the album to the best of my ability and release it on cassette and double vinyl. I agreed. 2 Days Later, Height of the pandemic, I received an Eviction notice from my house in retaliation for me reporting them for doing a fake black mold remediation on my house. This changed the course of things in a major way as I was dealing with health issues, on top of losing my career teaching at the hospital and Florida not giving anyone access to their unemployment March 2020-August 2020. My body was on the fritz, and now any sort of peace I had evaporated as I had to plan my next move with zero income, I had places both in Los Angeles and New York I could move to but that would have required placing all my belongings from my 2 bedroom house that I literally just required in 2017 after years of bouncing and Traversing State to State but I proceeded to open up The Uproot sessions anyway to use what time I had left having access to my studio monitors to properly mix and master. Unfortunately, my mind just couldn't focus on the task and instead of refining old songs, I did what I tend to always do when I'm overwhelmed, and just started making new beats from those old sessions, and then I just kept reflipping the same samples over and over a million different ways... This was basically the turning event that made me lean into #EvolvingPortals and I kind of never looked back ever since. Shortly after, my uncle called me and demanded I move in with my 90+ year old grandmother who wasn't handling the pandemic well. I refused for selfish reasons as I knew there would be no way I could play music loud enough to mix down music properly, but after speaking to her and hearing how bad she was doing. I put most of my belongings in Storage and moved into this 10x12 room I'm typing from now. After moving here, I abandoned the idea of remixing down The Uproot and began my next evolution leaning 100% into creating music in real time and recording the whole process, something I dabbled with a few times living at my house, but after being uprooted again as some sort of cosmic joke days after agreeing to finalize this old album about being uprooted haha, The thought of refining old music and attaching new energy to it while always trying to stick to the original vision was just not something I could bring myself to do.... So, Only this Demo version exists.... and it is what it is... and I've made so much new music since that helped me get through some tough times so I have zero regrets. I'm finally minting this album because a major shift in my life is taking place. As much as I rejected the idea of releasing this early version into the world knowing how it's final form sounded and hoping one day I would revisit it to bring that version back to life. That Chapter has closed, and in a way, if you couldn't already tell from all my backstories and subtle hints, I'm preparing myself to close the book in general. Which is why documenting my life's work and attaching so much context has been a mission. I will keep creating new art for as long as humanly possible, but I can't waste precious time going backwards to refine old energy. Every time I try, I just create a bunch of new stuff haha. This album has so much back story, context and experiences woven into as it was intended to be a double album, the rest of it you might know as "Traversal" =) I reference these two albums often in backstories as they were the final bodies of work where I created with intentions of creating a meaningful full story that flows from start to finish. It's been real time, improv, autopilot wizardry documenting expression ever since and I have no current intentions or desires to go back to putting this much time and thought into creating a conventional album again. So many people Adore this album even in its demo form. It's hard for me to share that same sentiment when I know what it evolved to become. I'm releasing this as is, on chain as Side A and Side B. Both at 5eth each. I never mint with the expectations of songs ever being collected. Just grateful to document my story and creative expressions. If someone does want to collect both Side A & Side B. Just bid 7eth on one. and I will gift you the other side. If / when they are both collected. I will finally release this version on Cassette with a special dedication to you in the credits. To be clear, I mean this version you are listening to now. I would love to make a grand gesture that I would finally take time to go back into the sessions to refine the more finalized version, but trust me. You want me to utilize the remaining time I have expressing current energy and emotion, not going back in time. There are so many photos and videos surrounding this album and most of the albums I would love to document on chain soon, but worse comes to worse, I'll just send a SSD drive with it all nearly organized to whoever collects these first. When I decided to mint these, I was gonna avoid any added backstory beyond the write ups done by John Morrison and Mecca83, but the Rambles just happen. Autopilot. mind Portals if you may. If you are curious about the context or backstories around any specific song, please don't hesitate to reach out.. - Dutch