The late producer J Dilla’s ability to re-oxygenate creaky soul samples is often celebrated as one of his preeminent gifts, but it reflected only a portion of his body of work.

Less analyzed but equally important was the legendary beat maker's ability to seamlessly infuse the automaton funk and fractured experimentation of electronic music pioneers such as Raymond Scott, Giorgio Moroder and the Belleville Three (Derrick May, Kevin Saunderson and Juan Atkins).

Even less known was Dilla’s love of vocoder pioneer Bruce Haack, a Julliard-schooled, peyote-ingesting polymath from Alberta, Canada. Largely obscure to mass audiences in his lifetime, Haack's appearances on “Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood,” “The Mike Douglas Show” and “The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson” fostered his reputation as a kooky uncle playing extraterrestrial-sounding synths to dazzled audiences a decade before Kraftwerk.

Like Dilla himself, Haack was an inscrutable shapeshifter impossible to pigeonhole. He spent most of the 1960s and '70s switching between children’s music, experimental rock operas and acid-rock synth opuses. His collected output runs the gamut from Roald Dahl at his weirdest, Tangerine Dream being covered by Kraftwerk and Devo on strong drugs. Sampled by Cut Chemist and covered by Beck and Stereolab, Haack’s work remains the right kind of weird 22 years after his death.

If no description is more overused than “visionary,” Haack is one of the few artists worthy of the word. Even his swan song, 1982’s “Party Machine,” telescoped toward the future, with Haack collaborating with a young Russell Simmons to create a funky vocoder jam that would probably warp Kanye West’s circuits if he heard it today. The tune is collected with all of Haack’s seminal work on the Stones Throw-released “Farad: The Electric Voice,” a compilation named after his trusted homemade vocoder.

It was executive-produced by Peanut Butter Wolf, who was first exposed to Haack via a road trip with Dilla and Madlib. An instant convert, he’s fittingly remixed Haack’s “Stand Up Lazarus,” a song that references a biblical parable about a man who rises from the grave. Haack isn’t about to escape the cemetery anytime soon, but the stellar “Farad” ensures that his music will get a second lifetime.

-- Jeff Weiss

Download: (Pop & Hiss Premiere)
MP3: Bruce Haack -- "Stand Up Lazarus (Peanut Butter Wolf Remix)"

MP3: Bruce Haack -- "Electric to Me Turn"

In recent years, Los Angeles has emerged as a quasi-outpost of Detroit. Following the lead of the late producer J Dilla, who relocated in the middle part of the last decade, everyone from DJ HouseShoes to Dilla's brother, Illa J, to Guilty Simpson to Mayer Hawthorne (technically from Ann Arbor) have spent a heavy portion of their time basking in the affable weather and laid-back West Coast vibes.

One of the most notable transplants has been longtime Dilla collaborator Frank Nitt, best known as one half of the duo Frank-N-Dank.

Though his Motor City roots will always figure prominently into his music, the rapper born Frank Bush has assimilated well into his new digs, collaborating with Madib on a forthcoming Medicine Show, working with Mike Ross of the venerable Delicious Vinyl, and now releasing "Jewels in My Backpack," an entirely Terrace Martin-produced EP on the famed imprint.

Featuring guest spots from left coast legends DJ Quik and Kurupt, the record breaks new stylistic ground for Nitt, a rapper best known for rhyming over the gritty and spare bangers of Dilla's post-Slum Village phase. "Jewels in My Backpack" aims to find a middle ground between Bush's gruff Detroit bark and Martin's plush West Coast rider music -- hence the title that seeks to balance the glossy with the grimy. 

In conjunction with the release, Nitt spoke to Pop & Hiss about his new record, how he got down with Delicious Vinyl, and of course, his work with the legendary J Dilla. Additionally, he premiered an MP3 for "L.O.V.E." featuring DJ Quik and J. Black.  

How did Frank-n-Dank form in the first place?

We'd been in a group since 1995. At first, Dank was a dancer -- the idea to form Frank-n-Dank was T3 of Slum Village's idea. Dank already had the nickname because he was the only dude in the crew to smoke weed at the start, so we called him President Dankworth because that was the name of this album that Dilla had on his wall. 

Westfield Culver City is the quintessential late 20th century American mall. A sprawling, multilevel maze of everything from a Cinnabon to a Radio Shack, the mall formerly known as Fox Hills also has a bit of an unfortunate history, and has recently undergone a massive transformation.

In an effort to revitalize the shopping center to reflect the improvements in the area, a reported $180 million was sunk into the recent transformation of the Westfield Culver City. All of which made the free KCRW-sponsored concert by emerging soul sensation Mayer Hawthorne an improbably special event.


Mall concerts have been historically predominated by industry-driven potential teen sensations (see Tiffany’s fame-generating “The Beautiful You: Celebrating The Good Life Shopping Mall Tour” of 1987). But on Saturday, an impressive crowd of fans and unsuspecting shoppers alike found themselves enthralled with Hawthorne's snappy, Motown-inspired blue-eyed soul.