Fort Worth artist Tornup is probably best known as the emcee who gave us last year’s brilliant You Will Never Understand (The State of Soul). If you had been paying attention to his career for a longer time, you might also know that he’s nice with the beats. Well, that doesn’t matter anymore, because know you can get a crash course with his latest beat tape, Touristic Sonics.

As one might do under quarantine, Tornup started to go through his files to take stock of different musical ideas that he had recorded. In doing so, he started to see a pattern emerging that kind of worked perfectly for this exact moment. In selecting the right beats and putting them together in the right order, he could take listeners on a short trip around the world. So, over the course of eleven short tracks, starting and ending in North Central Texas, we go to Nova Scotia, Hermosa Beach, Uganda, New Orleans, Rio, Tokyo, Rwanda, and Barcelona. What this means in practical terms is that you get a little bit of everything, from Tornup turning the volume up on a bounce beat that will get your ass moving, to some beautiful and intricate guitar and bass work with a Spanish influence, and everything in between. What’s really impressive here is that because Tornup didn’t sit down and try to make a global beat tape, he avoids a lot of the cheesy trappings of trying to “represent” certain regions. Instead, he was just trying out different musical ideas and trying to make some dope beats, and this just kind of emerged. What this means is that regardless of the theme, you have a really great beat tape with a lot of variety to it, but it also flows really well from track to track. On top of all of this, I also appreciate the inclusion of a couple of short skits talking about the weirdness of North Central Texas weather, because people outside of the region don’t understand just how truly bizarre it gets there.

If you’re looking for a quick escape during these strange days, take a trip with Tornup. He’s a really talented musician with a really wide range of interests, but he’s also focused enough to take a bunch of random ideas and turn them into something coherent and fun to listen to.