The third track on Light­worlds, “Zoid,” is the type of music I live for. Slow-burning epic synths, some dirty gui­tar lines, backed by heavy and hec­tic drums that cover the inside of your head with visions of new worlds and dis­cov­ery. I didn’t know much about Mr. Chop before buy­ing this 7 track EP other than that he had some asso­ci­a­tions with Keb Darge and Mal­colm Catto, two heavy­weights of the deep funk record col­lect­ing com­mu­nity. But it’s on Now-Again Records, who I love, so I look a lit­tle deeper and read that Catto plays drums on this EP, which made it some­thing essen­tial to check out. Catto has been around for awhile and most recently released the psych-jazz-funk album by his band Helio­centrics and con­tributed the heav­i­est drums of all time to the MRR-ADM 10″ EP that blew up the record fiend com­mu­nity. Turns out that Light­worlds is pretty much the best thing since sliced bread. “The Infin­ity Machine” begins the EP with some Jaki Liebezeit psych drum­ming before launch­ing into the huge groove that pro­pels this set of music out of the start­ing gate. It all cul­mi­nates in a gor­geous and euphoric loop of strings that pushes the groove into the stratos­phere. After a short bass and drum exper­i­men­tal inter­lude, the afore­men­tioned “Zoid” takes cen­ter stage and makes me sali­vate at the thought of a full Mr. Chop album next year. The short gui­tar inter­lude after “Zoid” deserves to get a fuller treat­ment down the road. The wah wah is cracked up to the max and dubbed the fuck out, remind­ing me of that badass Secret Fre­quency Crew album. “Don’t Try To Think” belongs on the torchi­est, blue­si­est, dirt­i­est debut album of some unknown singer you’ve never heard of, some­thing you’d find in a small smoke-filled bar, dense and deep rhodes sketch­ing the melody out. The last two songs, “Stark” and “Metropoli Del Ferro,” end the album in some full-on funk work­outs that will end up on crate-digger com­pi­la­tion 20–30 years from now. “Metropoli Del Ferro” moves through a few dif­fer­ent sec­tions, with the synths and gui­tars main­tain­ing a steady and infec­tious groove the whole time. It’s a big song, ambi­tious in scope and pulled off immac­u­lately. The drums go fur­ther and fur­ther down the rab­bit hole until the entire thing col­lapses from exhaus­tion, the song’s and yours. Avail­able on vinyl in Decem­ber and dig­i­tally here at Stones Throw, this is an utterly fan­tas­tic release and I highly rec­om­mend it.
Mr. Chop MySpace — Stream­ing Tracks

I used to drive around at night with Amongst Strangers fill­ing my car, the waves of gui­tars and com­plex drum pro­gram­ming weav­ing in and out of the high­way lights, the neon mark­ers mak­ing sure I didn’t get lost on my home from a friend’s or the movies or a bar. Mr Cooper paints music and his new album, What Else There Is, only expands on this idea. With a career that found him col­lab­o­rat­ing with more strictly hip-hop related artists like Sage Fran­cis, Mr Cooper is able to bal­ance the two, and present here an album full of upbeat drum infer­nos and gor­geous sound­scapes. Much like his 2600 Record­ings mix, this new album presents a tableau of dif­fer­ent sounds that co-exist as one cohe­sive mood, chill­ing you out and pump­ing you up at the same time. Released by Project Moon­cir­cle, it’s avail­able as CD or LP from HHV or dig­i­tally from a vari­ety of places (The man him­self rec­om­mended Dig­i­tal Tunes for high qual­ity DRM-free files).
Mr Cooper MySpace — Stream­ing Tracks
Mr Cooper — “Sam­ples, Beats and Tracks (Mix — MP3)

Shift­ing Tides is still one of the most beau­ti­ful and well pro­duced instru­men­tal hip-hop/turntablist albums I’ve ever heard. I’ve been a fan of 2tall ever since this. From his mixes, remixes, and var­i­ous col­lab­o­ra­tions, he always comes cor­rect. The Softer Dia­gram, his new album on Dday One’s Con­tent Label. The Dilla influ­ence is heavy, but 2tall’s take on it pro­pels the melodic and arrange­ment aspects into the stratos­phere. The short “Raise Your Head” is a great exam­ple of this, com­bin­ing a Shift­ing Tides style drum pat­tern with gor­geous found vocals and gui­tars. “Dis­tant Shad­ows” is like an expanded and more full ver­sion of that song, this time with male vocals, keys, and an esca­lat­ing eupho­ria amidst the drums and gui­tars. “Rit­ual” is another short track which com­bines Dilla style drums with some old-school sam­ples, bring­ing to mind some Krush. “Gar­den Child” is another slow-burning instru­men­tal bal­lad, full of gen­tly pluck­ing strings and scratched horns. 2tall remains one of the most excit­ing and tal­ented pro­duc­ers out there, some­one I’ll be fol­low­ing for a long time! (Bonus: Check out his recent mix for Rhythm Incur­sions linked below for sounds from like-minded pro­duc­ers).
A Softer Dia­gram Megamix (mp3)
“The Most High” from The Softer Dia­gram(mp3)
2tall — Rebirth of the Beat (mix — mp3) | Info + Tracklist