MINT

limited yellow vinyl 7"

When Ruff Draft saw its initial release in 2003, J Dilla possessed production skills on par with anyone in hip-hop – technically and creatively. “At the top of his game,” says longtime friend and collaborator, Karriem Riggins. After years of building while modestly deferring to others of both greater and lesser notoriety, Dilla finally completed the first solo endeavor on his own label, entirely on his own terms. The significance of such an autonomous success often gets overlooked, and partly accounts for why Ruff Draft is one of the lesser-referenced entries in Dilla’s oeuvre. “It’s a mysterious little project,” says his mother, Maureen Yancey. “But out of his entire career, that was the happiest time.”Prior to recording the EP, Dilla found himself at a crossroads. Estranged from his label, MCA, and separated from the mother of his youngest daughter, frustration abounded both personally and professionally. Dilla spent parts of 2002 and 2003 working on an album for MCA that featured his rapping over contributions from other producers with whom he had connected and whose music he respected. At the time, he was known primarily for his beats, yet reviled for his MCing by most anyone not from his hometown of Detroit. The project was to be an intentional freak of the industry.The project would go on to spur his collaborative album with Madlib, Jaylib, and would first showcase the template that he would take to his greatest heights with 2006’s Donuts. The Stones Throw reissue of Ruff Draft from 2008 featured remixes of the songs from the album, done without Dilla’s involvement. This version of the album takes Dilla’s recently discovered mixes of the album and restores his vision for the project. “Straight from the mothafuckin’ cassette,” as he phrased the sound he was going for on the EP’s intro. It is buttressed by unreleased tracks and is presented in two versions: LP one is the EP as it was originally released, LP 2 is the alternate version that Dilla had for the project. Author Ronnie Reese expands upon his original liner notes to further tell Dilla’s story, in a booklet complete with never before published photographs from the Ruff Draft photo session.The producer’s own mixes – recently rediscovered - of his seminal EP, expanded with bonus tracks into a 2LP set, with extensive liner notes and unpublished photos.

Byron the Aquarius returns for a gorgeous double LP. Expect the smoothness of deep house, melodic instrumental hip hop production of the J Dilla creed along with tight jazz pieces.The New Beginning LP showcases range and expertise from the off, exploding with pulsing discordant jazz in "Amaya's Voyage". Psychedelic g-funk is the MO of "Smoke One For Huckaby", before a B-side milieu of jazz and hip hop reminiscent of Guru's Jazzmatazz. The album settles into a deep groove across its C-side, the highlight of which is the percussive workout of "Underground Was Black", complemented delicately with dazed pads and buoyant but smokey lounge jazz sounds in "Cosmic Jazz". Off kilter hip hop shines through in "Last Time We Gonna Do This" and its eclectic sound palette, then we are blindsided by the heavy electro distortion of "The End Of The World". The record closes with a collaboration of the genres explored throughout, pieced together into the pumping "Lost People of Tron".

umero Group and Rush Hour present: the V4 Visions label sampler, 1990-1994. A five-song overview of the pioneering UK street soul label that lived at the confluence of lovers rock, deep house, swing beat and jungle. In anticipation of the the forthcoming 2xLP label-spanning compilation. Limited edition of 500 copies.

Back in 2019, Safe Trip delivered a much-needed reissue of Trans-4m’s previously overlooked 1992 debut album, Sublunar Oracles, an ambient house and ambient techno masterpiece from Belgian brothers Stefan and Dimitri Van Elsen. Now the label has dived into their archives again to present an expanded edition of their sought-after 12” single Dencity, complete with a previously unheard cut.While the original album version of ‘Dencity’ was a meandering journey through spacey ambient house full of ultra-dreamy ambient textures twinkling melodies and languid deep house grooves, the alternative takes originally featured on the 1992 12” were far more club-focused and dancefloor-ready.This new edition boasts both of those gloriously kaleidoscopic and tactile revisions in freshly remastered form. There’s the EP opening ‘Urban Tribe Mix’, a bolder and heavier take featuring crunchier, weightier drums, gently psychedelic electronics and New Jersey garage style organ stabs, and the ‘Club Mix’, where saucer-eyed chords, echoing bleeps and energetic piano riffs help drive the track forwards.Over on side B there’s a chance to check an alternative version of the Sublunar Oracles album version, as well as previously unreleased track ‘Butterflies’. Recorded during the same period as the album at the Van Elsen brothers’ home studio in Antwerp, it’s a starry, slowly unfurling ambient delight in which waves of attractive, undulating synthesizer sounds, yearning chords and deep space electronics dance away atop a shuffling, soft-touch drum machine beat. While it may have been shelved way back in 1992, it’s every bit as immersive and tactile as anything on Sublunar Oracles.