Each Tuesday, FADER editor Matthew Schnipper highlights an underappreciated recent release he thinks we need to know about. This week it’s Smith N Hack’s Tribute. Listen to “Strength and Inspiration” below, buy Tribute here and read about it after the jump.

In college, I thought it would be a good idea to learn to play an instrument. I bought a trumpet from some guy on Craigslist and had him mail it to me. I remember I missed it one day and thought they would redeliver the next two days but they didn’t and I was so disappointed because all I wanted to do was play the trumpet and when it showed up I was excited and I played it. But I had to get it repaired first, and get a new mouthpiece. Have you ever played the trumpet? It’s weird and difficult. You have to pucker your lips while making them strong and blow your breath in different direction. It’s like whistling except not whimsical. If you ever saw pictures of people playing trumpet with big puffed out cheeks and crazy eyes, you should know they are playing wrong. Or at least that is what my trumpet teacher said. I never got to be good at playing right (or wrong), though I could play a very simple Bach piece, which was nice. At least I think it was Bach, I can’t remember. I really wanted to learn more about how music was made because I listen to it so much. It seemed frivolous to be so presumptuous with strong opinions with no knowledge to back it up. It’s not that I had any desire for skill, but just for an understanding of what skill might feel like.

Last night I was in a recording studio for a few hours watching people move music from Logic to Pro Tools. The bass wouldn’t sound right, then the clavinet. The piano worked, and it was recorded with what is apparently Elton John’s preferred method, which is a large contact microphone in the instrument’s guts. There were so many wires everywhere, instruments stacked on instruments. The drums had blankets over them, a maypole’s worth of hanging microphones. Everything looked like an earthquake meter or a ’70s movie prop. Dude pulled some old broken acid house keyboard out of an orange gym bag and started trilling away. They played the demo vocals, you could hear the feedback from headphones. There was an oscilloscope and a dude watching movies on his computer whose job was just to sit there in case they needed anything. And when they did, he fixed it.

I cannot imagine making music naturally. It is difficult enough for me to imagine getting enough hangers so that my shirts do not sit in a pile on a chair in my bedroom. But that’s why both natural cleanliness and an inclination towards musicianship are all-alluring to me. I like ideas, but I like follow through better. And when you blend the two it makes me feel jealous and excited. Smith N Hack, two German dudes, listened to a lot of Bohannon and figured out how to cut it up and repurpose. In the studio last night dudes were having to fill in their own blanks, on Tribute they already have the answers they just have to find the right ones. That’s what’s so impressive about the record; it’s like a crossword puzzle, you know all the answers will be letters but you don’t know which one. I like Bohannon. But I like the idea of someone liking Bohannon and cutting his music into little pieces to make obsessively repetitive songs better. And better than that I like that I actually like it. “Strength and Inspiration” has guitar moan and little solace for the Bohannon fan, just gritty beatbacks and a midpace. “To Our Disco Friends,” the album opener and lead jammer is the cut and paste masterpiece, but it’s more flagrant and less subtle. “It’s time it’s time it’s to to to get get funk funk funky,” Bohannon is cut up to say, pupeteered and lightly mocking. Not that there isn’t love there, but it’s goofy and for a project already so teetering on ridiculous, a smidge of kindness needs to be regularly peppered.

I’m a simple listener, simple critic. I’m not sure how simple of a dude I am but I at least like to front. And Tribute is a simple concept, simple word. I like that the song I like most is called “Strength and Inspiration.” Listen to that plink, it’s heartfelt. I bet Smith and/or Hack really got heavy vibes from Bohannon and needed to repurpose, work out on their own. I cannot imagine. It’s such a kind gesture to him, to his music, fashioning his songs as an instrument itself. Is Bohannon alive? He seems like the kind of guy who would be dead. Do you think he heard this? Do you think he liked it? It would be harsh if he was upset. But imagine if they met, Smith, Hack, Big B chilling together talking about drumsticks and musical futures. I know Bohannon would still exist without Smith N Hack but in some ways they invented his myth and you’re nothing without a little lore.

Before I started playing trumpet I remember watching a video of John Fahey on an instructional guitar show and the host asked him how he composed, because she would never teach her students to use their thumbs the way he did. He didn’t really address that, just said he got a six pack of beer and started playing. For some people it’s just natural and I was kind of like, Yeah.