Curbside Jones is an artist from Austin who has been coming into their own in the last year or so. Last April, he teamed up with Maryland artist Dexter Fizz to release Last Train, an album based on their experiences touring in Japan. In just the last month, Curbside Jones came back with a solo project, Jigga With the Grill. Now he’s right back with an instrumental project, 6 Piece.

Whenever an artist is a charismatic emcee, it’s easy to think that is all that they do, but in the case of Curbside Jones, he’s nice with the beats as well. And that’s what 6 Piece is here to remind us of. It’s nothing too fancy, just six beats with nice grooves, creative sample flips, and enough variety and development to keep your interest throughout. In some ways, simple projects like this are even tougher tests than if Jones were to give us a full length album. That’s because when you’ve only got six tracks and the longest one clocks in at 2:10, it would be really easy to listen to this once, clock that the beats are generally good but don’t go anywhere, and just move on and move the release to the back of your mind. Fortunately for Curbside Jones, he’s packing enough in musicality, creativity and variety to catch your attention and keep it throughout. He’s clearly studied the masters, and even when he namechecks someone like Dilla on “Remember Me (One4Dilla),” he manages to walk that tightrope where he manages to pay loving tribute without just aping Dilla straight up - he adds enough of his own flavor. He manages to put that style into conversation with the rest of his beats and show us how it’s just one of the tools in his kit.

6 Piece has no right to be as good as it is. On paper, this looks like a dump of unused beats, but in practice we quickly learn that there is so much more going on. Curbside Jones is nice on the mic, but he’s just as nice on the beats, and 6 Piece is a friendly reminder of just that.