Ramble Jon Krohn emerged as RJD2 in 2002 with his Deadringer album, a moody exercise in cut’n’paste hip hop that some saw as overly in thrall to DJ Shadow’s Endtroducing… No danger of such an accusation with the follow-up, for which RJD2 wrote original music and lyrics and arranged the orchestration.
Here, solid song structure replaces ambient abstraction and, rather than limiting himself to the vintage funk and old-school hip hop that this genre relies on so heavily, RJD2 ranges across Latino jazz, stadium rock, soul and pastoral glitch. Thus, “Since ’76” reconfigures Sergio Mendes, while “Through The Walls” plunders The Cars, then adds piano. A cool, well-timed curveball.
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