spacemayor is a producer out of Albany who is relatively new to the game, or at least under this alias. He now makes his debut with his album, guilt milk. There are a lot of different ways to approach a solo album from a hip hop producer, whether it be the compilation approach with many different emcees hopping on, or the fully developed instrumental songs, a la DJ Shadow, or there is the extended beat tape congealing into something greater, a la Donuts.

Hugo Kant is a producer/composer from France that has been putting out music for about ten years. Most recently, he was tapped to participate in Ian Urbina’s Outlaw Ocean music project, to which he contributed the Seven Seas EP. Now he’s back with his fourth full-length album, Far From Home. Over the course of his last couple of albums, Hugo Kant has been exploring this theme of travel and exploration. It’s not explicitly laid out, but through the combination of art work, song titles, and the music itself, we can see how his last album, Out of Time, tells the tale of an astronaut who is lost in space.

Georgie Sweet is a young artist from London that generated a little bit of excitement last year, when she released two singles, “Stories” and “Sorry,” both produced by Marc Rapson. What people may or may not have realized at the time was that this was just a teaser, and that Sweet had a full-length debut album in the works. Well, now it’s finally here in the form of Misunderstood. Debut albums can sometimes be tricky things to navigate if the artist involved isn’t too sure of themselves or maybe they’re still trying to figure out a way synthesize their influences and find their own voice.

Few artists can fuck with Open Mike Eagle’s run through the 2010s. Starting with Unapologetic Art Rap in 2010 and working his way through Brick Body Kids Still Daydream in 2017, he established himself as a unique and creative voice in an overcrowded field. Eagle followed his last album up with an EP, but then focused on a TV show for Comedy Central with Baron Vaughn, The New Negroes. Everything seemed like it was going great for Eagle on the surface, but apparently not all was well behind the scenes, which he now processes on his latest album, Anime, Trauma and Divorce.

Back in 2018, Australian producer Ta-ku developed an imprint with Jakarta Records called 823. Since that time, they’ve given us some beautiful instrumental hip hop from Kuzich, Please Wait, and quickly, quickly. Now they’ve decided to take things up a notch with one of my favorite relics from the ‘90s, a label sampler, this one called All Things Considered Vol. 1. Now kids, for those of you that don’t remember when label samplers were a thing, the idea behind these compilations was to introduce you to artists that you didn’t know and give you a feel for the label and get you excited about future releases.

Ben Buck is an artist from Austin that has really been going strong over the last five years as an emcee, producer, and beatboxer. He’s been busy in 2020, with an album, Kilroy, coming out in January, which was then followed by a collection of instrumentals and a slew of collaborative singles. Now he’s back with another album, Speaker Bump Deluxe. For this album, Buck is handling production and rhyming duties, and he’s coming out of the gates swinging on both counts.

Elusive is a producer from Los Angeles that has been going strong since the late ‘90s, collaborating over the years with emcees like Abstract Rude and Myka 9, performing at Low End Theory, and releasing projects on labels like Alpha Pup and DOMEOFDOOM. Most recently, he released a project last December called Ambient Void. Now he’s back with a new album, Horizons. If you’ve listened to other recent Elusive projects, Horizons will make a lot of sense to you, since he’s continuing to explore the intersection between experimental electronic music, hip hop, and jazz.

Souleance came into existence over a decade ago in France when producers Fulgeance and DJ Soulist teamed up and started making music together, weaving their way through jazz, dance, and hip hop influences. Most recently, they released a live tribute album to Canadian jazz pianist Gal MacDermot this past May. Now, they turn to a new project that sought to incorporate their expanded live sound with additional musicians into a studio setting with a new EP, Les Mouches.

The Opus is the Chicago duo of producers Mr. Echos and The Isle of Weight. Together, they have been making music for the better part of two decades. In recent years, they have been fairly quiet, but they have now come back to record an EP as part of the Outlaw Ocean Music Project, Sonar Plexus. In 2019, report Ian Urbina released a book that was the culmination of years of research called The Outlaw Ocean, which chronicles all the ways in which we as a planet don’t govern the oceans, which constitute about two-thirds of the planet.

Ardamus is an artist from D.C. that has been making music for about twenty years. He’s had a pretty busy 2020, first releasing an album with Height Keech called Astro Blocks back in February, and then following that up with an EP just this past September called Enshrouded: Angels [EP]. Now he’s come right back with the follow up release, Enshrouded: Devils [EP]. If you listened to Angels, Devils picks up right where that one left off.