A lot of people tell me that I’m a closed minded person when it comes to music; generally sticking my tastes, firmly with the teachings of house, breaks and drum n’ bass, I’ll rarely diverge. So naturally, when I hear about a new project incorporating some of these genre’s it makes one’s ears perk up quite high.

Tayo and Skool of Thought’s label Cool & Deadly sees the release and support of a new project entitled Black Canvas, featuring the relatively unknown (for me anyway) talents of Mr. Melody and Rider Shafique with their debut album Rise, a collection of tracks covering the bases of hip hop, breaks, drum n’ bass and funk and the raps of the group.

The album opens to the bass plucks and acoustic flicks of Naturally, which combines a slow beat on top of the primary vocals of the album (which feature heavily throughout), dropping in some really well timed scratches over the acoustic guitar flicking. We move through to their collaboration with Ed Solo on We Fear Not, the breakbeat track of the album; it’s a fairly ho-hum affair, with some Stanton Warrior’s kicks over a quick-draw desperado guitar that drops in and out.

It’s not until we’re past the opening four tracks that we start seeing an improvement of interesting sounds. When Black Canvas show off the dark sounding track Spread My Wings, which is a slice of metallic electro bass fuelled hip hop that incorporates the vocals very well. This then moves to moves to Once Again, which combines the eastern vibes with some more hip hop backed up by some fantastically placed strings, adding a bit of class to the track.

You might be thinking that it’s all very hip hop based stuff, when we mentioned earlier that it was a fusion of genres. Well, Black Canvas do prove that they’re approaching other genre’s with a collaboration on Broken Dreams with drum n’ bass highlights Chase and Status, which starts off as another vibrant eastern hip hop tune but moves into the lasers and speed of C&S’s drum n’ bass background. It’s a change of pace for the album, but that pace quickly recedes back to some more hip-hop.

This time infused with more funk with arguably the best track on the album, Babylon. A track which evokes a really slick image of driving a Cadillac, slowly over the Brooklyn Bridge, with some ensemble jazz elements and a dusky sounding funky lead pounding by a pulsating bass, this track oozes class and badassness. My Life slows things down more with some more chilled hip hop, dropping layered vocals, time stretched claps, beeps and raps. In the closing minute of the tune comes a trumpet solo accompanied by some more of those killer jazz elements. The closing track Psalm 23 lays down some religious references and pickings of synth powered strings, guitar plucking and atmospheric humming. It’s a very light way to close the album and to deliver a message of sorts that the music that they’ve produced does hold meaning and value.

With that though, the album suffers a bit with the opening tracks; the vocals work fantastically when given the appropriate backing, but the album focuses so much on delivering the same vocals, it becomes a bit too much, which in turn develops a sort of monotony that makes Rise a bit of a turn off. However, Black Canvas prevail with the three-quarters of the album being a great little journey through a greatly varied pallet of hip-hop fused with a little drum and bass, and breaks. The final tracks of the album are an absolute standout of what exactly these guys can achieve and what they have already; which is an impressive debut album.