Evil Needle is a Berlin-born, France/Netherlands-based producer who has been putting out music since the beginning of the decade, and has worked with labels such as HW&W, Soulection, and Cascade. His most recent effort came out last November when he release the EP, Igida. Now he’s returned with new EP, Lost Tape. When you see a title like Lost Tape, your instincts are probably to assume that this is music that was buried in the vaults somewhere and is just now seeing the light of day.

At the beginning of this year, Twin Cities vocalist K.Raydio decided to not sit still and wait for other projects to come together, and started putting out a series of self-produced demo EPs. After putting out one a month for the first three months, she took a little bit of a break. Now she’s returned with volume four, 4:44. This has been an interesting series of releases, for a couple of reasons.

L.A. emcee Bambu has been one of the best emcees working this decade, dropping some classic albums such as Party Worker and Prey for the Devil along the way. While it has been a couple of years since his last album, he’s tided over his fans with some singles and EPs, with the last EP coming just last September. Now hes back with another EP, Exrcising A Demon | Article II | Brother Hoods.

Super Smack is a relatively new artist who made a splash earlier this year when he played some unofficial nerdcore shows during SXSW. Now that the New York emcee’s debut EP, Neon Red, is finally here, everyone can finally see what the buzz is all about. From the opening bars of the first track, “Super Smack – Labo of Love,” you can get a pretty good sense why people have been getting excited about Super Smack.

Sankofa has is an emcee from Fort Wayne, Indiana who has been laying down rhymes for over fifteen years now, releasing music at a pretty steady pace. Two years ago, he released an EP produced by J.Dankworth called 100 Magnets. Now they’ve followed it up with a full-length album, 102 Magnets. 102 Magnets, among other things, is a very teachable album. By that I mean that if you want an album that will show you the ropes of hip hop and show you what you need to have a solid foundation as an emcee or producer, you need to listen to this album.

Calvin Valentine is an emcee/producer originally from Eugene who has since relocated to Los Angeles. While also making those life changes, he also made his debut with Mello Music last year, first with the instrumental collection Plush Seats, and then with the vocal album Keep Summer Safe. Now he’s come back with another project, Napkins. Napkins is an interesting project, in that it feels like a collection of demos, or maybe just an older underground hip hop release, when the sound quality wasn’t necessarily crisp and professional, but that was part of the charm anyway, like you were listening to something that wasn’t even supposed to be out.

In a short amount of time, Nottingham-based label Running Circle has given us some great music and built an identity based on some progressive jazz, already releasing music from Yazmin Lacey and Pete Beardsworth. They now continue to build upon that foundation by releasing the debut album from London act Kinkajous, Hidden Lines. Kinkajous is a four-piece group, with Adrien Cau on tenor sax/bass clarinet, Benoit Parmentier on drums/production, Maria Chiara Argiro on piano/Rhodes, and Andres Castellanos on bass.

Emcees Mega Ran and MC Lars have long been in each other’s orbits, since the subgenre known as nerdcore is a fairly small world, and so it was natural that they would keep connecting over the years, touring together and guesting on each other’s projects. Now, after all this time, they’ve finally made a full-length album together, Dewey Decibel System. As you might have inferred from the title of this album, the theme here is books.

Sweatson Klank is an L.A. producer who has been making music for several years, first releasing under the name of TAKE in the previous decade, before switching names and continuing to evolve and work with labels like Project Mooncircle, Alphapup, Brainfeeder, and Ghostly, just to name a few. He’s kept very busy, releasing an EP just this past April, while also dropping an LP and an EP last year as well.

Mecca:83 is a Manchester producer who has been releasing music since the beginning of the decade, both under this name and his alias Rise. Over the years, he’s collaborated with various artists, but he’s also released a lot of instrumental material as well. His last official release came just over a year ago when he released the Midnight Radio EP. Now he has teamed up with a producer from Strasbourg, France named Kayo to make a short project called Quiet Dawn.