^I like quite a few of Exiles productions. His "Black Album Remixes" EPs are some of my favorite from that remix craze of Jay Z's Black Album years back.
Recently...
(Catch-up. 
Yeah, again)
Dr Jeckyll & Mr. Hyde - The Champagne or Rap LP (Profile Records) 1985
^I've always liked these guys from the moment I heard em way back in the day. They always had simple unfuckwidable, straight forward samples, fun loving 80s themes, and simple rhymes and good flow. Their profile singles are all great but this is a nice way to get the bulk of them in one swoop.
Royal Flush - Dance or Die 12" (Rap-A-Lot) 1988
^Corny name, goofy cover, but a really dope 12" from Royal Flush. Both the A and the B side is where it's at and despite what you might think by the title and time period it's not a cheeky Hip House single. I couldn't dance to this if I tried, it's too non dancy.
Beastie Boys - Black Label Remixes 12" (Black Label) Unknown Year
^Rare? Black label (bootleg?) of some crazy dope Beastie Boys remixes. I bought this from Dustygroove on a whim hoping that it would be cool and I lucked out. Thing is it had no information whatsoever on it about the songs or remixers so I had to email Dustygroove and ask them for the tracklisting and production credits. Being the good people they are, they got back to me shortly with the list of tracks and remixers. I was suprised to see some of their names and really they are all pretty great. But (and I'm not being biased) J-Rocc's remix by far is the dopest Beasties remix I have ever heard.
Dabrye - Two/Three LP (Ghostly International)
^Really dope inde production on this now HTF record. I have always loved this guys spacy minimal approach to Hip Hop production, it's abstract enough to stand out but still has the proper ammount of simple boom bap to keep it real and out of the fucked up backpacker realm. I have a lot of this guys stuff, he's really top notch, and he's been lumped into the glitch hop style but he rules over all those other glitch dudes in my book. He must have a little pull with some people in good places because here is a list of the performing rappers on this album: Wildchild, Doom, Vast Aire, Beans, Waajeed, Guilty Simpson, Paradime, Ta'Raach, Kadence, Finale, Invincible, AG, Jay Dee, and Phat Kat to name a few. Each and every rapper seems to fit perfectly over the beat Dabrye built for them, I think that's pretty impressive.
Mix Master Mike - Anti Theft Device LP (Asphodel) 1998
^This is one of the few strictly turntablism albums I can chill out to and listen to all the way through without going completely ADD from the lightning fast tricks bombarding my ears. Bottom line, MMM did it perfectly. Choice beats, that are absolutely banging, not too much technical trickery or crazy sound effects repeated backwards and forwards and short songs that cut out right when they should instead of dragging on forever. This guy is one of my favorite turntablists, and I have always liked this since it came out in 1998, but to this day I can still put this on and not get bored like I do with a lot of albums in this style. I also have his later album, Bangzilla which isn't as simple or good as this now classic TT album.
DJ Frane - Electric Garden of Delights LP (Tuff City Massive) 2003
^This is another strictly turntablism album that I can chill out to all the way through. The differences between this and MMM's is like night and day. This one is more of the moody laid back sounds, DJ Shadow styled subtle yet hard beats, deep digging samples, and very sparse scratch solos throughout. He layers the beats and keeps the tempo slow and chill and he adds on when he scratches instead of overpowering the sample. You can tell I bought this 10 years ago when I was pretty fresh to buying records because like an utter dumbass I had to put a BPM label sticker on the cover, covering up some incredible original Mear One artwork in the process. Seriously, this could be such a cool-ass cover to keep mint under an outer protective sleeve but my newb-ass didn't get it back then. I MUST KNOW THE BPM OF EVERY SONG OR I CAN'T MIX type dumbassery. Oh well, live and learn I guess.
“Lesser artists borrow... great artists steal.” - Igor Stravinsky
OP OP Blog CDC
Instagram | Twitter | Facebook | Beat Junkies Blog
