Hermit Kingdom is a group from Austin that have been doing their thing, making left-field hip hop for a few years now. Recently, one of the emcees from the group, Philos, teamed up with an up-and-coming producer also in Austin, Flobama, to make an album together. Now the result of their hard work is finally here in the form of Love Hugs Drugs. This is an interesting album in a lot of different ways.

It was just last September when we saw Bay Area emcee Azeem team up with the German production duo known as Ancient Astronauts to release the album Broken Puppets. Now, just a few months later, Azeem pairs up with one of the two producers, KABANJAK, to release a different type of album in Vision Teller. While Broken Puppets was a little more typical in terms of what you’d expect out of these underground hip hop artists, Vision Teller is slightly different in his approach.

Skyzoo is an emcee from Brooklyn that has been releasing music at a steady clip since 2006. Most recently, he teamed up with producer Apollo Brown in 2016 to release the album The Easy Truth. Now he comes back with his most ambitious album to date, In Celebration of Us. Skyzoo has been at this for a while now, and for many years now, he’s existed in a weird spot in my mind.

Sorrdes is the Ipswich producer formerly known as Deadpoole. While still using that moniker, his last release was back in May of 2016, with the album Night/Life. Now, with a what seems like a seemingly innocent and understandable shift in names, he comes out with a new project, Strange Hymns. A name change in hip hop is a strange thing. Sometimes it’s done purposefully, meant to specifically designate a different project, or even a different persona.

Saskatoon producer Factor Chandelier has given us a lot of music over the years, whether he’s collaborating on full length albums with the likes of Ceschi, Myka 9, Kay the Aquanaut, and others, or when he’s delivering complex solo albums. Just last year, he gave us the grand and rewarding concept album about the buried history of his home town, Factoria. Now he comes back with a different type of solo album in Wisdom Teeth.

Ten years ago, the group known as The ILLustionists was started by emcee Sammy Warm Hands and producer Web Beats as an excuse to have fun and make music together. Not to long after they formed, the group expanded into a six-piece live band and recorded extensively. By 2011, the group was largely known as just Sammy Warm Hands and E. Ville, who toured extensively together through 2013. By 2014, Odar Beats had taken over the reigns as the groups main producer, and they began to work on their sixth album.

It was only a couple of weeks ago that we last heard from Dayton artist GrandAce, when he released his EP, Colors in the Office. You didn’t have to wait long for the follow up effort, as we now get his brand-new EP, Feel Good. If Colors in the Office was about looking back on 2017 and trying to deal with the struggles and hurt that came in the past year, Feel Good is the companion piece where this young man tries to dust off his shoulders and look forward with optimism.

It’s been about two years since we last heard from Sole, when he released his second album with DJ Pain 1, Nihilismo. Now he comes back with a self-produced solo album, Let Them Eat Sand. If you are familiar with Sole, an album title like Let Them Eat Sand probably sounds exactly like what you’ve come to expect from the anarchist/emcee/producer. After all, this is the guy who recorded “Salt on Everything” fifteen years ago, and despite moments of promise here and there, things haven’t exactly gotten better since then.

It was only back in August 2016 that we were first introduced the Tucson emcee known as Lando Chill, when he dropped his excellent debut album, For Mark, Your Son. He quickly followed that up with an EP, and then took another huge step forward with his sophomore album, The Boy Who Spoke To The Wind, which came out last summer and made its way onto our own year-end Top Twenty.

STS is an emcee from Philadelphia who is best known for releasing a full-length album with RJD2 back in 2015. This time around, he’s paired up with Khari Mateen, a multi-instrumentalist and producer also from Philly, best known for his work with The Roots, contributing to the string of albums from Game Theory through undun. Together, they present Better on a Sunday. A few things become apparent as you listen to this album.