Back in 2016, French producer Wasaru released an album called Sadtimes, one in which he brought together artists from all over the world, including the US, Germany, South Korea, and Japan and featured some great beats. Now, while we still wait on his next project, we get to revisit his last one with Sadtimes Recomposed.

While the title says “Recomposed,” this is in essence a remix album, which means that we have two main factors to consider – the source material and the new contributors. Fortunately, the original album was a really good album that brought together not just a lot of different emcees, but a range of styles of music from Wasaru, all falling under the umbrella of hip hop. For this Recomposed addition, we get contributions from such producers as Yaul, Lil’Fish, Silvestro Dice, Jay Humble, Spectateur, G.Bonson, Pierre the Motionless, RSN, Slawth, and Mooncalf. Each producer brings their own unique flavor to the album, but the really nice thing is that in bringing these many artists in to remix an album that already had a lot of guests, it still flows really well from start to finish and works as a coherent listening experience. My personal favorites on the album are Spectateur’s remix of “TwoThousandThirteen,” who manages to blend some really odd and eerie elements to create an unusual intro and outro to the song, while still delivering a banger once the beat kicks in, and the jazzy trip hop that G.Bonson brings to “Monuments,” which is just full of head nodding goodness.

I don’t know when the next original project will be coming from Wasaru, but in the meantime we’ve been given an excellent reimagining of his last album in Sadtimes Recomposed. It brings in a lot of new talent to the mix with a lot of new takes, but it will also remind of the excellent work that Wasaru laid down two years ago.