A joint effort between Wino Willy and bassist/producer, MLTZR, Pastels is an album forged in the fires of collaboration and a deep respect for the music of the past. Whereas Sun Ra was the muse and spiritual muse of Wno Willy's previous release, Pastels draws key inspiration from Ron Carter, the renowned bassist who has collaborated with nearly every legend in jazz including Coleman Hawkins, Wes Montgomery, Milt Jackson, Eric Dolphy and more. A taste ful and eclectic player, Carter was not only a member of Miles Davis' famed second great quintet, in 1991, he appeared on A Tribe Called Quest's classic sophomore album, The Low End Theory, a collaboration that served as a practical bridge between hip hop and jazz, oldschool and newschool. In keeping with the spirit of collaboration that marked Carter's celebrated career, Pastels' lush, head-nodding beats were assembled like a jam session, even though the duo live well over 2,000 miles away (New Orleans and Portland respectively). Wino Willy explains how each sound was carefully selected before being chopped, layered and flipped to create new beats "Some of the sounds you hear on here are samples. Some of it is stuff that MLTZR composed, some of it's stuff that I composed." From the star-gazing synths of the album's opener, "Cosmic Latte" to the smokey, jazz-futurism of "Harlequin", Pastels is a journey through the sonic possibilities of jazz and hip hop.