SAMPLEDSortilège: how one Aethiopes verse turned Preservation and Gabe 'Nandez into a duo
Nandez's appearance on "Sauvage" was the seed. The full-length that grew out of it is one of the most texturally strange records Backwoodz has released.
Backwoodz traces Sortilège back to a single song. Gabe 'Nandez appeared alongside Boldy James on "Sauvage," a standout from Aethiopes, Preservation's 2022 album with billy woods. The label describes that track as the catalyst — the moment the producer and the younger rapper realized there was a full record in the pairing.
What Preservation does
Preservation builds beats out of records most crate diggers walk past: regional folk pressings, library music, film scores from places rap sampling rarely visits. On Aethiopes that approach gave woods a landscape rather than a backdrop. On Sortilège the same instinct is pointed at a different kind of voice.
What Nandez brings
Nandez raps in a low, unhurried register and moves between languages without announcing it, which suits production that never fully settles into a single geography. Where woods writes in dense allusion, Nandez writes in cold declaratives. Same terrain, different weather.
Why it matters for the label
Backwoodz has always used its established artists as an on-ramp for newer ones — a guest verse becomes an album, an album becomes a catalog. That pattern is laid out in our label guide, and Sortilège is a textbook case.
Vinyl, apparel and streaming links are on the Sortilège page (opens in a new tab).