It’s been a minute since we heard from ECID, but since he released How To Fake Your Own Death in 2017, capping off a really productive five year run, the Minneapolis-based artist picked things up and moved to Brooklyn. In September 2019, he teased us with a single, following up with another in January of this year. Now he’s officially back and he’s literally picking back up where he left off, giving us Post Euphoria Vol.

Daudi Abe is professor of humanities at Seattle Central College who has previously written the book 6 ‘n the Morning: West Coast Hip-Hop Music 1987-1992 and the Transformation of Mainstream Culture. For his latest project, he doesn’t look any further than the city he teaches in as he gives us Emerald Street: A History of Hip Hop in Seattle. Chances are, if you’re not from Seattle, you probably think of the city in terms of being a tech city, a coffee city, or the home of grunge.

One of the most interesting projects to emerge in 2020 was Ian Urbina’s Outlaw Ocean project. Urbina is a journalist who over the last ten years has been researching all the different problems that arise from the lack of laws governing the planets oceans, whether it be pollution, piracy, or human trafficking, just to name a few. This work culminated in the book The Outlaw Ocean, which was published in 2019.

In August and November of this year, New Haven artists Mandy Moorehol and Sketch tha Cataclysm paired up to release a couple of EPs, Hella Kafkaesque Vol. 1 and Hella Kafkaesque Vol. 2. If this flew under the radar for you, never fear, because they’ve already gone back and put everything together to make a deluxe package and get everything in one place, with Hella Kafkaesque Vol. 1 & 2 Deluxe Package.

Kuartz is a producer from Manchester that has been releasing beat-based projects for about the last five years. He is probably best known stateside for producing “Playbill$,” on Ruby Ibarra’s CIRCA91. For his latest project, he’s giving us a tape inspired by Metal Fingers, MF Kuartz. The title and artwork of this beat tape might be a little misleading, in that this is not a remix album, and does not feature MF DOOM.

One of the bright spots of 2020 has been the realization of Adrian Younge and Ali Shaheed’s vision for their new imprint, Jazz is Dead. Seeking to give older jazz musicians to the tools and opportunity to record new material and to hopefully help them find a new younger audience, they have already released albums by Roy Ayers, Marcos Valle, and Azymuth. Now they are back to close out the year with Doug Carn for JID005.

Freecember is here, the magical time of year when Fake Four puts out a release each week for free digital download by a lesser known artist that might benefit from a Fake Four bump. Last week we got a release from Austin’s Chief and TheDoomsdayDevice, but this week we turn our focus to Maine, where Anthony Maintain is delivering a new EP called Ghost Pipes. Anthony Maintain is a producer/emcee who used to be based in Austin, but he moved up to Maine a few years back.

Sleep Sinatra is an emcee from Lincoln, Nebraska who has been putting out music since 2014. He’s been releasing albums at a pretty steady clip, with his last album coming this past May, Sleeper Effect. Now he’s teamed up with Dallas producer August Fanon to release his latest LP, Routes. It won’t take long into Routes to see the appeal of this album. August Fanon is laying down some raw, rough-around-the-edges, jazz-sampling boom bap.

Marc Jensen is a producer from Saskatoon that formerly worked under the name Marjen since 2012, releasing projects such as drmn and Dirge, just to name a couple. He started a new chapter in his career earlier this year as he decided to start releasing music under his given name, with the EP Prem coming just this past October. Now he’s back with another short project, Adventures in Synthesis. As you might conjecture from the title of this project, Adventures in Synthesis is built around the synthesizer.

Stay Tuned is the Denver group consisting of emcees Ichiban and Mane Rok and deejay DJ AWHAT!!!. It’s been five years since they released their self-titled album, when Ichiban was just a guest artist. However, starting late last year, they started releasing singles that hinted at a bigger project coming down the pipeline. Now it’s finally here in the form of Remote Control. The idea behind Remote Control is just to simulate the day in the life of someone plopping down and turning the TV on, and just following the programming throughout the day, into the night, where you might fall asleep on the couch with the TV still on (don’t look at me – I would never!