Ohbliv x Just Plain Ant - 'Black Soap'
A brief look at how I discovered an under the radar Ohbliv project from 2009.
On Sunday, April 4th, I shared and retweeted various things in celebration of Roland’s 404 Day. 404 Day gives Roland SP-404 users from around the world a chance to share their music and participate in the different Roland-sponsored, 404-centric events like this years SP Takeover on Facebook.
One of the items I shared was a screenshot of a 2010 Tumblr post from Ohbliv. When a fan asked him what he used to create beats, this was his response.
“My Brain, the 404 and vinyl. I only use a comp to import. But get busy with whatever u can get your hands on and Just do you. Salute!”
I always loved the quote so I figured I’d share it. Plus Ohbliv’s Tumblr is badass.
After my tweet got a nice response I searched for a second Ohbliv/404-related thing to share and stumbled upon this 2009 tweet. I was immediately intrigued. Usually links from this long ago are broken and lead to nothing. This one, however, still works. And it brought me to a really cool instrumental project I’d never heard before—Ohbliv x Just Plain Ant’s Black Soap.
My background for this project is very limited. According to this YouTube upload, Ohbliv produced the first six tracks and Just Plain Ant producer the other six. There isn’t much info besides that available online or on Twitter.
In a way, I kind of like that. I found a project that doesn’t exist on Bandcamp or streaming from the early days of a great producer’s career. I don’t have a lot of context for how it came to be, so I get to take the music for what it is without overthinking it.
I also don’t have a ton of information on Just Plan Ant, who was pretty prolific from 2009 to 2013—though he hasn’t released anything new in quite some time. He’s another talented producer from Richmond, Virginia and it looks like he and Ohbliv collaborated several times around the release of Black Soap.
In the end, finding this tweet and this collaborative album was a helpful reminder. No matter how well you think you know a musician’s body of work, there’s usually more waiting to be discovered and experienced.
I’m really happy I stumbled upon this underground release from many years ago. I hope your enjoy it as much as I have.
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