Bee's Knees - Variety Pack

Bee's Knees
Variety Pack EP
2016
Spotify

If you have heard of Bee's Knees its likely you have been on more than one Soundcloud deep dives in your day. The DJ has always prided himself on making interesting and out there decisions remixing artists you would not expect and switching up styles on a dime. "Keeper" is just a touch of dubstep, a little trap and the genre bending keeps going on and on as the record continues. "Old School" is basically a play on funk and disco that is bright, light and super fun. With all this jumping around you would expect the EP to be completely disjointed, but you would be horribly wrong. Bee's Knees somehow takes all these influences and makes them work for the sound that he wants, not constrained by one rule or another. "Oh Shelia" which has this incredible bass line throughout manages to bring in some techno influences with the big disco bass and the song just cooks from start to finish. Now with a runtime of just under 14 minutes you aren't getting to big of taste of what Bee's Knees can do, but take a little time to look and you will see just how much music this guy has out there. One of the best out there is one he did for Panama Wedding SoundCloud and it just pops when it needs to and soars just when the time is right.

"Keeper" which features Chuck Inglish & Buddy is the weakest track on the record, but not because Bee's Knees produced a bad track, it is because Chuck Inglish is actually quite bad at rapping. The lyrics to this track are so mundane and His delivery so boring that you can barely keep your eyes open. Perhaps the only decent line is when he says "watching Martin with my boxers on" which is a funny picture but not all that great of song writing. One thing that Bee's Knees doesn't really do is take these songs and really expand them into something better. He seems perfectly comfortable staying in the pop range of things. There is not much in terms of a lot to dive into or really explore on this album, it all seems to be right there on the surface easily accessible. In the end however the record feels well done but missing a few elements to really set it apart. Also remember it is the end of the year so musicians are really scrapping the bottom of the barrel for new tunes. Anyway this is my 723 fucking review so cut me some slack.

6.8 out of 10