Brax Stax feels like home
Braxton Cook comes from a musical family. His mother was a concert pianist, and his brother plays guitar and writes music with Solange. Braxton plays saxophone, keys, and sings like he's a living distillation of that musicality, with a seamless convergence of the styles on which he was raised: jazz, hip hop, soul, and RnB. His playing has earned him critical acclaim, wide-ranging respect amongst his peers, and global gigs and collaborations with artists like Christian Scott and Tom Misch. We teamed up with Cook to see what he'd do with a sax, voice, Wurli, Jupiter-8, and flute, and recorded everything he played. We picked up his sounds with a U87 or SM, depending on the instrument and flavor we felt, then ran them through a Neve 1073. The resulting collection of sounds is stunning: warm, soulful loops and one-shots of sax, voice, a Wurlitzer, and a Prophet 8. These are samples that don't sound like samples at all.