Pugs Atomz is a Chicago emcee who has been releasing music for two decades. Over the years, he’s collaborated with people from around the globe, including DJ Vadim as part of The Electric. His most recent project was two years ago, when he released an album with Chicago producer Mulatto Patriot, Highly Irregular. Now he’s back to international collaborations as he pairs up with Australian producer Inkswell to release The Moon.

These days, it’s not uncommon for artists to collaborate over the Internet, but it’s still remarkable and random the way that artists will find each other. In this case, even though the two artists have worked with the same labels such as Tokyo Dawn and BBE, it was on Instagram that they actually connected. The original idea was just to do a single or two, but once they started working together they discovered they had great chemistry together, and before they knew it, they had been going back and forth for a year and had a new album on their hands, The Moon. One of the first things that hit me when listening to The Moon was just how much this felt like the underground of the early ‘00s, with Inkswell providing the left field boom bap, with just enough sci-fi sounding elements sprinkled throughout the soul samples to always keep you on your toes. Atomz is a veteran on the mic, and he spits with his Chicago accent with the greatest of ease, moving back and forth between the abstract and everyday life. Perhaps the aspect of the album that is most enjoyable is that this isn’t just a collaboration between two artists, but many, as the album is full of guest appearances from Wes Restless, Awdazcate, Nathan Knew, Ill Legit, Race Bannon, Planetself, K21, Taiaha, Alex Young, and Marc Hype. This gives the album this real cypher feel to it, very loose as everyone’s hopping on these dope beats and trying to outdo each other and have fun with it.

Pugs Atomz and Inkswell aren’t trying to overthink things on The Moon. Lay down some dope beats with a sci-fi edge, then get Pugs and a bunch of other talented emcees to trade a bunch of rhymes. It’s a simple formula, it’s time tested, and it works here on The Moon.