As someone who both admires and produces music, I find that branching out from your realm of specific musical appreciation makes you a better artist. Having grown up listening to jazz musicians such as Dave Brubeck and the brothers Gershwin, I took a quick and affectionate liking to beat tapes. With taking up this endeavor, I picked up a digital copy of Fresh Squeezed by a producer named Limes. While their Bandcamp site is quite barren, their Soundcloud is thriving with an extensive back catalogue.

Fresh Squeezed utilizes a specific style of hip-hop production called “boom bap”, which is a very chill and jazzy technique that hones in on acoustic drum sounds. The term for this technique is actually an onomatopoeia of the sound the beats make. Notable producers and groups that make music that can fall under the boom bap label include LL Cool J, A Tribe Called Quest, and Wu-Tang Clan. This style of instrumental beat-making can easily also fall into the genre of chillwave, a style tied tightly to vaporwave.

Just by looking at the cover of the album, a simple screenshot from a memorable episode of SpongeBob SquarePants, the listener can gain a sense of the light-heartedness of the album. The titles also refer back to the quintessential cartoon that essentially shaped the comedic nature of a generation. It is a fun album that eases the listener into bliss with jazzy piano rolls and sweeping cymbal effects.