The Tallahassee-raised, Nashville-based artist known as kidDEAD has been making music for over a decade now. His last effort, Cut the Kite String, came out in spring of 2017, and marked his strongest effort to date. Earlier this year, he lost a bunch of music from his computer that he had worked on over the last eight years, so he felt compelled to release everything else he had, since it was music that meant a lot to him.

Handbook is a producer from York, England, who has been releasing music since the beginning of this decade. The last time we heard from him was just back in June, when he released an EP on Cascade Records called Reminiscence. Now he comes back with an album that was actually made a couple of years ago when Handbook returned from a visit to Australia and was inspired to create. The result is an album appropriately title Oz.

Raquel Divar is an emcee originally from San Francisco, but she’s been based in Portland, Oregon for several years now. Corey O is a producer from Portland who has been releasing music for the better part of the decade. For whatever reason, even though they’ve been at this for a while, they haven’t gained much recognition outside of the Portland area. Hopefully, that will begin to change as they team up and drop a new EP, The Reign.

Googie is a New York emcee that has been working as part of the Karma Kids crew, as well as a solo artist. His last solo album, ‘Tis What ‘Tis, came out back in 2016. He now returns with a brand-new effort, Floating Polygons. One of the first things that will hit you in listening to this album is just how much fun it is. First and foremost, Googie knows how to rock a crowd and keep everybody entertained.

Back in April of this year, Seattle artist Araless threw fans for a loop when the guy who just dropped a politically charged EP called Proletariat Rock came back with an EP full of smooth R&B called Something About You: Spring. It was a change of pace, for sure, but it was also fantastic. The good news is that Spring was just the beginning, and now Summer is here. Nothing was broke with Something About You: Spring, so Araless continues to work with producer OK on Summer as well.

Everything about this album was born about two years ago. Doomtree emcee Sims had just his solo album More Than Ever, which was largely produced by Twin Cites producer ICETEP. Around this same time, Sims had been contacted by the newly formed group Air Credits, consisting of Chicago artists Show You Suck and Hood Internet, to appear on their first album. It wasn’t much longer until Sims and Air Credits were on tour together, and by the time the tour was over, all four artists now found themselves collaborating on a new album as a group, first in Chicago, and then Minneapolis.

Ta-ku started a project called 823 earlier this year through German label Jakarta Records, with the idea that amongst other things that it would serve as an imprint in which he could shine a light on some emerging artists. The first release came via an Australian musician named Kuzich, but now we travel all the way to Portland, Oregon, for a producer who goes by the name Quickly, Quickly. Ideally, I think you should probably listen to Over Skies once without any background knowledge, and just let the music in for a second.

Way back in the early ‘00s, there was a supergroup from Boston by the name of The Perceptionists, who released one album, Black Dialogue, in 2005. It was shortly followed by a live album and a remix album by Willie Evans Jr., but then DJ Fakts left the group, and life threw Mr. Lif and Akrobatiks some pretty nasty curveballs, and it wasn’t clear that we’d ever get another Perceptionists album.

The Secret Stages Music Discovery Festival happened this past weekend in Birmingham, and for the first time in the Avondale neighborhood. This was our first year covering the festival, so I can’t compare to prior years when it happened downtown, but I can say that things worked out great in Avondale. It’s not a huge neighborhood, but it what is does have is really good. This meant that you didn’t have to walk far to find great food and beer, and all five stages were within one block of each other, and they all had great sound.

Homage CVG is a producer from Cincinnati who is part of the Fort Ancient crew. He’s been busy releasing some collective projects and singles, but his last proper solo project came out a little over a year ago when he dropped By Jove!: A Planetary Beat Expedition. Now he’s come back with a new project, a full-length album called Hacienda. Hacienda is a western-themed project, but if you focus too much on the theme, you might become just a little disappointed.