Small Professor is a producer from Philly who has been releasing music for over a decade. He’s collaborated with everyone from Curly Castro to Guilty Simpson, and he’s been part of groups like Them That Do. Over the years, he’s also been releasing quality instrumental projects at a steady pace, most notably his different “Jawn” collections. His latest collection of jawns is Can’t Trap My Mind.

In general, Small Professor’s sound over the years has been defined by his knack for building beats around seamlessly combining samples from old jazz and soul records, done with a subtly and knack for midtempo grooves that will instinctively get your head nodding. That’s certainly present here on Can’t Trap My Mind, with tasty guitar licks, upright bass, subtle horns, and crisp drums kicking off the project on “gotta learn to live with regrets.” This continues with variation over the next couple of tracks, but then Small Pro throws us all for a loop with the eerie backwards manipulation of strings and drums played against free jazz piano on “the tyner is infinite,” something that will make you sit upright and listen carefully after getting lulled into a groove by the first couple of tracks. This experimentation continues on “clarence weatherspoonie g,” with it’s short, tight loops, huge snare hits, manipulated vocal samples, and clever punched in samples, all creating a lot of tension. The collection never gets scarier than “birds in the trap sing mccheese,” with it’s aggressive, deliberate drums accentuated by a dissonant piano chord repeated over and over, while bird sounds and strings swirl in the background, just ramping the tension up to eleven. Fortunately, after these moments, as good as they are, Small Pro eases you back into some more comfortable and soulful beats over the last three tracks, laying down some warm and soulful grooves.

In a lot of ways, Can’t Trap My Mind is similar to a lot of the other “jawn” collections that Small Professor has released over the years, but it almost feels like he’s luring you in with the comfort, just to smack you with his eerie, experimental beats in the middle. It’s a nice and unexpected change of pace, and something that I certainly wouldn’t mind him exploring further in the future.