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With mainstream music of all kinds getting dumber and less inspired by the day, along with painful wait times between underground releases, I’ve found myself searching for head bobbers and bangers in stranger territories. Lately I’ve been excavating the deep, rich mines of DJ instrumental albums. And for those of you who crave psychedelia and a solid bass line equally, this is exciting territory to be mining.

Cut Chemist - photo by Oliver Shyal Beardsley

Cut Chemist’s 2006 debut full length, The Audience’s Listening, has a stranglehold in my iTunes “Recent Played” playlist right now, and with good reason. With his track record of producing neck-breaking beats for Jurassic 5, checking out his solo material should be pretty much a no brainer. Seriously, check your brain at the door — smoke some California medicine, flip this on, and prepare for blastoff.

The Audience’s Listening is incredibly diverse, as Cut Chemist liberally rifles through samples and rearranges them into some truly mind-blowing soundscapes. After a few introductory spins, the listener is finally able to peel their slacking jaw off their desk and move on to actually digging into the songs. This is an album that demands numerous play-throughs to fully appreciate, although I suspect any fans of scratching, trip hop, and backpack rap will be coming back to it quite willingly anyway.

It’s an exciting 47 minutes to behold — a treasure chest of world beats, turntable feats, and party fuel a la The Avalanches. And since the Apocalypse is likely to arrive before The Avalanches’ long-awaited followup, Cut Chemist’s whacked-out concoctions are a fine substitute for all those times you feel like going on a sonic vacation.

Anyway, before I go, I wanted to sprinkle a little pixie dust in your eye.

Maybe it’s not quite magical, but it’s still a heck of an even number to randomly hit. Wish I had been paying attention when 666 rolled around a few years ago. I would have even taken 6666 — evil with a touch of extra evil. Whatever. There’s no real significance to 9000, except that after another year or so, I’ll forsake a 4 digit song count forever. Or at least until I clean out the 8000 or so songs I have that I never listen to. Never mind that now — we’re going straight on til’ 10 grand.