The first time I ever heard Passage was while driving in a 1999 Toyota Corolla out 271 towards Lake County - Ohio, that is. I'd received The Forcefield Kids as a promo and was just sampling the tracks in order to figure out some angle to get the review started with. But this disc was the first Anticon offering I'd heard that was becoming detached from hip hop - not the entire offering, but certainly some of that Passage album signaled that the Bay area collective had no intention of being relegated to one specific genre - I was right. Once.

I wasn't thrilled with it, but it wasn't because the album was different than what I'd been used to. There was just too much oddball nonsense tossed in for me to appreciate the thing as a cohesive work. Going back, now, maybe that was just short sighted. Maybe not. But either way, after coming across Tennis, Piano and Other Primary Sightings over at the Beat Box Radio Show, my perception of Passage and The Forcefield Kids changed.

Tennis was apparently a CDr that was available at shows. The limited number of these discs available might account for why I'd not ever heard of it - but I never really got into Restiform Bodies either, so who knows. But considering that Passage's proper release and this disc are from precisely the same moment in time, it's curious as to why and moreover HOW the two offerings are so different.

Most immediately, it's pretty easily figured that on Tennis there's a profound lack of guitar. And whether or not the acoustic music that is a part of The Forcefield Kids was sampled or not, the overwhelmingly electronic Tennis could almost pass for another producer and rapper. That could all be based on the outlet that Anticon was working to be at the time - it is possible that someone over there had some sort of input into The Forcefield Kids but not Tennis.

Having a free hand to do as one pleases, though, would most likely influence the productivity of an artist. On Tennis the production really reaches some new height - not for the genre, but it's beyond what most would expect when tossing on any Passage/Restiform Bodies release. Unfortunately, the tracks aren't numbered, but the fourth song, an instrumental, is a hi-hat heavy, overly orchestrated banger that can't really find too many others to call similar. The pervasive drumming doesn't take on any annoying sort of vibe as the slight melodic work turns inside out and ends up sounding like a tuba.

The fact that over a slight seven tracks (or eight - apparently there two different versions of the disc) at least three of them stand out points to the musical prowess of Passage. A few of these offerings end up getting near what Anticon sounded like as a whole during the year of '04. But even this short disc from Passage is able to show listeners that the musical junkyard that is production doesn't really have any boundaries.