New Odd Nosdam out on Anticon. I've been a fan of this dude since cLoudDead's first record. He's the other beat head from the original anticon crew other than Jel, but I've always had the feeling that he's more of the boom-bap lover than Jel, who I think would rather be making music like Fennesz if he could. The music for this record was made for the Skateboarding video This Is My Element, but it doesn't need to read like that if you don't want it to. It's got a lot of the bitcrushed, fuzzwad earthiness that you'd expect from him, but there's also such a lovely degree of nostalgia thrown around. Some old dub ("Top Rank"), CSNY ("Root Bark"), some old hardcore from some friend's band I imagine he listened to back in high school ("We Bad Apples"), an old Egyptian Lover 80's rap bit ("Trunk Bomb"), and something from a long lost tropical/western tune that I wish Harry Belafonte had sung on ("One for Dallas"). It has become passé almost among beatmakers to crate dig into far away lands (just to be clear, I'm not sure whether he's digging for his samples or making them himself, but the nostalgia/genre recognition effect is somewhat similar regardless - the difference is only in the process), it's cooler now to remix new tracks with the sample out in front rather than hide it as Odd Nosdam has done, or make your samples from scratch. But it's refreshing to hear someone do it right, with a style so linked up with the origin of anticon and everything they do. It's precise but spaced out, melancholic but emergent, and altogether soulful in ways that make all these glossed up, clean as a whistle beat records look sterile or poncey. Good eats beats.

Top Rank
Root Bark
One for Dallas
Ethereal Slap
Fly Mode