Fort Ancient Records is a collective out of Cincinnati consisting of Homage CVG, Phonopage, Waldo From Cincinnati, Dren AD, and Samuel Steezmore. They’ve been putting out music for a couple of years now, but last year they developed a series of releases called Fort Ancient Airlines. The idea is that they all contribute to a short collection of instrumental tracks tied to the theme of a certain city, and they pull in a guest artist to serve as your pilot for the flight. Last year we hit Rochester, Long Beach, Kansas City, and Biloxi. We now start off 2019 with a short flight to Seattle.

Seattle as a city is probably best known for the grunge music released in the early ‘90s, but the truth is that the city’s musical history goes much deeper than that. In fact, Seattle is somewhat slept on in terms of its jazz scene, in particular. Knowing that, you can appreciate the incredibly smooth and jazzy ride that Fort Ancient takes you on this short trip. AP Counterfeit is your pilot for the journey, and he does his part to move the proceeding along, but it’s the stable hands and great chemistry between these producers where the magic happen. These beats are really well developed, with a great feel for each groove. It’s the kind of music that just envelops you, warms you up, and then send you on your way. These collections are short, but Fort Ancient knows how to make their mark with some nice downtempo beats and then just get out of the way.

I don’t know where else we’re headed this year, but Seattle is a great place to get warmed up. Fort Ancient Records continue to make their presence known with these EPs, just a little bit at a time.