Replete with all the flair, shine, and cinematic attitude of jazz music’s ballroom past, Chalky lays down an incredibly delicious interpretation of nu jazz with grandiose compositional strength in his debut album Second Beach.

Although we’re not sure where producer el. aka Mighty Recordings may hail from, fingerprints of the northeastern U.S. hip-hop sound are all over his beats. Productions from el. fit well behind verses from your favorite rapper, although they’re just as exciting as instrumentals. He’s been making music for at least six years, but most of the knocks in our curated playlist come from the last two.

The talented and abstract beatmaker Boukas returns with The Coffee Tape Vol. 1 dropping as per usual on NINETOFIVE Worldwide Beatmakers. Boukas aka Dennis Boukas of Stockholm, Sweden has been working on these compositions throughout the autumn. This is reflected in the album’s jazzy motif and sparse compositions, which swing in the breeze like gangly trees removed of their leaves.

Three years after releasing their last EP and almost seven years after their last full length album, the production powerhouse duo KOAN Sound unveil their most ambitious and lucid collection of music to date; Polychrome.

Ten years to the day since Gramatik dropped Street Bangers Vol. 1 and began turning a new sub-section of music heads on to boom-bap instrumentals, he returns like the long-lost hero Odysseus bearing SB5, or Street Bangers Vol. 5, a capstone for his hallowed series of high fidelity hip-hop compilations.

Creeping up and out of the atmosphere of Gastropodia Prime is perhaps one last slug for the year of 2018, and like all the rest, he's a real slime ball; Straight out of the gate, Fanu flips the script right on it’s head. Combining low fidelity textures with pounding bass lines and massively compressed percussion, Whack Lack Vol. 3 is perhaps the most ferocious battlewax release from the slugs to date.