A Hundred Thousand Joints Later, Tyree Cooper and Vin Sol Made an EP

Vin Sol and friend

It's a match made in deep house heaven: Chicago vet Tyree Cooper cutting tracks with Vin Sol and Matrixxman—two Bay Area weirdos who grew up chewing on Tyree's pioneering blend of acid and hip-hop-tinged house jams. Turns out they all had one more thing in common: a passionate love for the sticky icky. Good old smoke sessions, apparently, were the creative instigators for their EP's sunset ambiance. According to Tyree, "100,000" joints went into It's House, and they got so high, their mouths were hanging low like, um… we'll just let you get to the interview. It's House comes out (in a billow of smoke) on Vin Sol's Soo Wavey label on October 22, and we've got first dibs on the exclusive stream. Listen above; read below.

A baby-faced Tyree Cooper 

THUMP: The title of your EP is It's House. What qualities of a track make you sit up and say, "That's house!" 

Tyree Cooper: House is still what it was always meant to be: a feeling, or, a good sense of what it is to have total freedom of expression, mind, body, and spirit.

Vin Sol: So many people think it's just the 4/4 drums, but nah… it's deeper than that. A banging house track can be just a rhythm, maybe just some chords but if it has the right vibe I'm like, yup that's it—IT'S HOUSE!

How did you guys get connected? 

T: I met them at a party that i was doing in San Francisco, and they just simply approached me about a project that they had in mind. Of course 100,000 joints later is what you hear now.

Tyree, you're quite the prolific rapper. How did you come up with the lyrics for the track? Especially the part that goes, "To your feet, to the dance floor, back to your head, to your arms, you understand me right?" 

T: We just sat back and let the herb take control while we went on a ride. The meaning behind my lyrics was that i was trying to explain that total body experience when you hear really good house music, these are the parts that are most affected.

Where did you guys record the EP? Any good stories from the studio?

T: I insisted we record in their studio because i didn't wanna take it back to Berlin and work on it there. We went through the usual process of recording a track—late night sessions and the whole nine. I think one of the best studio session stories this one time we were so stoned that when i started to do my vocals the entire room was completely quiet, and when I asked them how it sounded they couldn't speak for at least a minute and half. I mean their mouth was dropped like a fat 100-year-old woman's tits…

V: The music was done at the Soo Wavey HQ, but when we recorded the vocals my studio was acting funky that night, so we rolled to Matrixxman's spot at Different Fur in San Francisco. Let me say this Tyree ain't no lightweight, I was zoning for sure!

Describe the best scenario you can imagine people listening to this track in. 

V: You've been dancing all night, the light is beginning to creep in slowly from outside, and you know you should be getting going but just feel like you gotta keep the vibe going…

T: Try to imagine the most serene feeling you can have and couple that with some of that good ass Cali weed, and now you should have a small window of what went into the making of this track. You have to throw in quality dialog and Supa Dupa nation building. Now you have our session… Peace…

Michelle Lhooq has never smoked weed in her entire life - @MichelleLHOOQ