Eskmo CD

With almost a decade's worth of tunes under his belt already, San Franciscan producer Eskmo finally drops this astonishing first major album on Ninja Tune. Having slowly moved away from exclusively making dancefloor fodder, his releases on Warp and Planet Mu have shown a richness that puts him up there with Flying Lotus in terms of superior dreamy, Dilla-influenced hip-hop. Apart from his highly distinctive treatment of vocals, his use of shifting time-signatures (such as on "We Have Invisible Friends") is mesmerising, while his arrangements show that he's not just a studio boffin who let's style rule over substance - the long held note of feedback-like noise toward the end of "Moving Glowstream" for example is a masterstroke and one of the most affecting moments on the whole LP. It's rare to hear an album that's both completely unique in sound and in structure - this is one of them, and it simply begs to be heard many times over.

Kasket (apollo Records)