In May of this year, Cincinnati collective Fort Ancient Records launched a new beat tape series called Fort Ancient Airlines, with the idea that each tape would be a short trip to a new city. We’ve already traveled to Rochester and Long Beach, but now they’re taking us to Kansas City.

The collective, made up of producers Homage CVG, Waldo From Cincinnati, Prospek, Dren AD, and Stockboy, have been working together for a while now. Their chemistry at this point is such that on group projects like this, you can’t necessarily parse out who’s contributing what to the tracks. All you know is that it sounds like Fort Ancient, and it sounds good. As far as this particular series goes, Kansas City is by far the most successful. It’s not any longer than the other two, but it seems as though the group figured out how to best maximize a short collection of five tracks to fully communicate hopping on a plane and going to Kansas City. The beats themselves draw upon the jazz and blues of the city, sounding like a barbecue that I want to spend all afternoon at, moving from some soulful Hammond organ to some dusty acoustic slide guitar and everything in between. The pilot for this go around is Cincinatti musician Brent Olds, who does a nice job of being the emcee to setup the journey, but then gets out of the way and lets the music do the talking.

It’s still a short set, but Fort Ancient Airlines: Kansas City is the best beat tape in this series so far. In a short amount of time, these producers have come together to show some growth and vision to what this series can become. If you want an economical collection of some soulful, bluesy beats, this is the tape for you.