Dan Nakamura, or Dan The Automator as he's known to educated hip-hopologists and beat-worshippers worldwide, is a man with many pots on the stove. Half of the hip hop journeymen Handsome Boy Modeling School (with Prince Paul), producer extraordinaire to the likes of Del Tha Funkee Homosapien, Kasabian, Dr. Octagon, and a menagerie of others, and a frequent collaborator with Mike Patton, DJ Shadow and most recently- Mary Elizabeth Winstead. Yes. The actress Mary Elizabeth Winstead. The two struck up an unlikely friendship while Winstead was filming Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World (which Nakamura scored) and managed to produce an album worthy of giving Lana Del Rey's gloom and doom-fused "Ultraviolence" a run for the sunnier side of affairs.
Nakamura's penchant for collaborating with female vocalists comes from a seamless ability to showcase his respective collaborator's delivery while peppering in modern flourishes of his hip hop instrumentalists roots. This being his second outing as the backbeat for a vocalist in the last year (he previously released an album with singer-songwriter Emily Wells under the moniker, Pillowfight), "I Love You..." holds steady common ground French film scores of the sixties or Nakamura's collaboration with Mike Patton, "Lovage". Lush and effortless (like most of Dan The Automator's work), the producer managers to continuously remind us why he's one of the most sought-after soundsmiths in the business. More surprisingly is Winstead, who manages to hold her own amidst it all as both a songbird and lyricist- echoing the sentiments of an era passed as if it was her own.
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