Posted on 05/07/2009
Enter the 37th Chamber is the anticipated full-length selection of Wu-Tang interpretations from El Michels Affair, a collective of studio and session musicians whose work has extended into several hip-hop and soul acts of recent years. Here, the group has distilled the instrumental essence from a handful of classic Shaolin productions, resulting in a kind of Wu-Tang dub. Raw drums and skeletal piano melodies create instant waves of nostalgia, while new details in the arrangements fill out for the absence of vocals. This new context provides an additional level of interest for those already acquainted with the originals to the point of over-familiarity and potential boredom.

As suggested, the tracks are mostly drawn from the earlier, classic material, and where this rule is excepted it is to incorporate tracks that are still in sync with this style, as in “Uzi (Pinky Ring).” Enter the Wu-Tang and Only Built 4 Cuban Linx represent close to half of the songs chosen, while solo tracks from Ghost, ODB, and GZA make up most of the rest. A particularly striking version of “Shimmy Shimmy Ya” is the closing piece, an eerie chorus of children making a refrain from the first two lines.

Atmosphere is really the defining characteristic, for even where the music may deviate from what you remember, the spirit of the originals is maintained through a careful capturing of RZA’s dark, distinct, yet funky world. The group’s apparent experience with retro sounds and styles comes into useful application here; the recordings appear to be filtered in such a way as to increase resemblance to the original, sample-based aesthetic. Kung-fu samples are present, bits that were clearly taken from the same movies, but not the same bits exactly. It’s in keeping with the slightly off-centered view of the Wu that El Michels Affair creates, demonstrating an understanding of the original without recapitulating that world exactly, and so building enough room to put their own voice into it. They are very close, at times, to having made originals that are merely in the style of Wu, and you almost wish they would have gone all the way in this direction, freeing up some of the limitations that the original blueprints must presumably enforce. As it is, it’s one of the more interesting second-hand takes on the core Wu-Tang sound.

- Justin Deremo