Saafron is the alias of Dakim, an experimental producer signed to the forward-looking label, Leaving Records. The Detroit-based artist, who also goes by Dak, uses his alter egos to house various musical identities. When wearing the Saafron moniker, he dabbles in a bevy of different styles, emerging as a true avant-gardist with both hip-hop and freeform jazz sensibilities. In "Saffron," premiering today on EARMILK, all of those styles are on display.
"Saffron" begins and ends with a brief, relentless vocal sample, and that persists while a hip-hop beat and other percussive sounds join the mix. Roving basslines and pensive synthesizers arrive and depart at will, capricious in their unfolding. Even in its frenetic, quasi-formless state, though, the track is cohesive. Saafron always remains in control of his chaos. As such, "Saffron" could be labeled a modern day adaptation of Coltrane-era freeform jazz; it's a cerebral, club-ready, hip-hop mashup in the vein of Flying Lotus, and it would make FlyLo proud.
The near-eponymous song opens Saafron's debut record, Reishi, which arrives on August 26.
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