Mudville
Sultry, noir-inflected electronic blues that feels like a slow-burning fire in a rainy city. Sophisticated downtempo for deep nights and quiet contemplation.
Sultry, noir-inflected electronic blues that feels like a slow-burning fire in a rainy city. Sophisticated downtempo for deep nights and quiet contemplation.
Mudville sounds like the intersection of a smoky 1940s jazz lounge and a rain-slicked Brooklyn street corner in the dead of night. Marilyn Carino’s vocals possess a 'whiskey sour' quality, delivering poetic, surrealist imagery with a delivery that is simultaneously weary and commanding. The music moves with a deliberate, slinking pace, anchored by Ben Rubin’s deep bass lines and haunting electric piano chords.
What truly distinguishes them is the 'post-trip-hop' label, a sound that rejects the minimalist loops of their peers in favor of sophisticated songcraft and improvisational jazz flourishes. They trade the coldness of typical electronica for the warmth of Memphis soul and the unpredictability of free jazz, creating a texture that feels organic, dusty, and deeply human despite its electronic skeleton.
Start with 'Iris Nova' to hear their most refined chemistry. It is an album that rewards close listening, perfect for those moments when you want music that feels as heavy and atmospheric as a Jim Jarmusch film score.
Mudville is a Brooklyn, NY-based band and artist collective whose sound, a hybrid of downtempo, electronica, Memphis-style soul and jazz was dubbed, "post-trip hop" by John Donohue of The New Yorker. Core members Marilyn Carino and Ben (Benny Cha Cha) Rubin have distinguished themselves as adding sophistication to the genre with classic Hip hop stylings, elements of improvisational free jazz and attention to songcraft more influenced by Marvin Gaye and Duke Ellington than the minimalist, pop-based structure and lyrics by which the genre is most often characterized. The New York Post has lauded Mudville's "poetic lyrics, filled with imagery" and "otherworldly, blues-jazz feel" and Time Out New York characterized the band's live sound as "brainy, extended improvs... a potent fusion of jazz and space-rock.
Shares trip-hop, downtempo, nu jazz (subgenres); analog warmth, sample based, layered dense (production style)
Shares trip-hop, downtempo, art pop (subgenres); analog warmth, sample based, layered dense (production style)
Shares downtempo, trip-hop, neo-soul (subgenres); analog warmth, sample based, layered dense (production style)
Shares trip-hop, downtempo, nu jazz (subgenres); sample based, analog warmth, layered dense (production style)
Shares trip-hop, downtempo, nu jazz (subgenres); sample based, analog warmth, layered dense (production style)
Shares trip-hop, downtempo, nu jazz (subgenres); brooding, mysterious, melancholic (moods)
Shares trip-hop, downtempo, nu jazz (subgenres); brooding, mysterious, melancholic (moods)
Shares trip-hop, downtempo, nu jazz (subgenres); analog warmth, sample based, layered dense (production style)
Shares trip-hop, downtempo, nu jazz (subgenres); studio polished, layered dense, sample based (production style)
Cassette uses generative AI to enrich its catalog. How we use AI →
