Wattup People! Welcome to our crowd funding campaign for our first album: Dark Screens! It’s finally here and we couldn’t be more proud to share it with you guys !

We = Obvrse Barwin and Bad Mr. Bassman

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A little bit about us, how we met, and how this whole thing got sparked

We met in the sixth grade on the first day. Bassman says he remembers me climbing a tree during recess. I really wish I could remember doing that. At the end of that first year of junior high, Bad Mr. Bassman left to another school across town and we didn’t see each other for the next decade. 11 years pass, cut to 23 years old, and one day we just bumped into each other at the local pub. We started talking, got to remembering those fun times, and we ended up talking music. It just so happened that I had been rapping and writing rhymes relentlessly for the past six or seven years, had released two projects under another stage name, and I learned that he had just graduated with a degree in sound engineering from Full Sail University. He invited me to come hang out at the studio and yeah, it turned out he was a beast on the bass! What came next was only natural: “Dude I think we should try making a full album. I’ve been trying to find people to help me make my own music. If you’re up for it... I’m not doing anything all summer...let’s get to work! You produce and I'll rhyme!”

Creating the Album

Making this album we witnessed magic. We spent countless 15-hour days in the studio, playing and writing away, trying to find that perfect sound and balance that would make both our universes resonate with each other. Sometimes, I wonder how we were able to come up with the melodies, the rhythms... You could ask us questions about so many parts of this album and our answer would be: I have no idea man, it just happened. If I had to give a straight answer, I’d repeat what someone told me: luck is where hard work meets opportinuty. We were lucky enough to have a studio which allowed us to press "record" in the middle of what we called "5 A.M. burnout sessions". Those are the sessions during which anything can happen. Everyone is tired and lashing out; those are the sessions during which something would just click in the music and sparks would fly.

Funny enough, our earliest memory of us making cool sounds together is the banging of our foreheads on our desks in history class. That was out of despair, after our teacher would yell out the grades of our last pop quiz.

We promised ourselves, the drums on our tracks would bang even harder. They do!

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The Music

Making this album a collaborative process was really important to us. Bringing all the musicians into Grey Patch Studios was our way of bringing new people into our world. They all came through and they kindly blessed this album with bass lines, drum patterns, sax solos, and guitar riffs that still blow my mind. We never thought we would have that much quality, that level of musicianship on our album. D*mn it’s gunna feel good playing these songs live!

Check out our drummer:

All of the artists involved in this project blended their various musical influences and genres with our records, making Dark Screens a hip-hop fusion album at the cross roads between hip hop, jazz, funk, and rock n’ roll..

During post-production we were really lucky to work with Scott Hull from Masterdisk Studios, NY, a veteran mastering engineer, who specializes in fusion projects like ours. Scott really helped us bring power and depth to our tracks. We still can’t believe our album was mastered by the same guy who worked with artists such as Herbie Hancock, Bob Dylan, Nirvana, and Jay-Z! Insane!

Masterdisk NY

DARK SCREENS - OFFICIAL TRACKLIST

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Obvrse Barwin - Dark Screens (1st Album)