Shitao is a producer based in Paris who has been releasing music for about the last fifteen years. His most recent project, Mono, which came out last year, was a concept album that told a sci fi tale about an astronaut making an emergency landing on the planet Mono and going to explore his new surroundings. Now Shitao is back with another interesting concept album, Child’s Head With Flowers.

Child’s Head With Flowers tells the tale of a brother and a sister, Medion and Raisa, who work in a mine. “When the mine collapses, dozens of children go missing. Raisa comes home, but Medion doesn’t. After a week, while her parents are inconsolable and begin to mourn, Raisa runs away and goes in search of her brother. Just before leaving, she slips into her pocket a portrait she had made of her brother a few years ago: it represents his head surrounded by flowers.” Now, this obviously isn’t a typical hip hop tale, and it’s also not an easy tale to tell as an instrumental producer. However, much like Shitao’s previous work, the music stands up by itself, and the concept is really a bonus level on which to enjoy the music. So yes, if you just want to listen to an album full of pretty, cinematic instrumental hip hop and not go any further, it absolutely works on that level. Shitao is a talented producer, and he really knows how to develop his melodies and layer his compositions so that they flow and resonate with his listeners. That said, this is also why he gravitates towards these cinematic tales and styles of production, and it’s just that much more interesting to listen to elements of jazz and classical music being mixed with hip hop and then imagining this tale about a sister searching for her brother and trying to keep hope alive, filling in the details in your head as Shitao fills out this soundscape.

Child’s Head With Flowers is another excellent release from Shitao. He continues to craft these really thought provoking instrumental hip hop albums that encourage your imagination to run wild and interact with the music in all sorts of interesting ways.