If music journalists are frustrated musicians, then are hip-hop heads frustrated rockers? Wishing they were slaying Download with Iron Maiden instead of a studio surrounded by buttons and dials? Maybe not, but Antimc’s potent brew of synthesised punk, frenetic trip-hop and wacked-out fuzzy post-rock beats definitely lends itself to the spandex’d legs-on-monitors pose. Veteran collaborator of underground hip-hop legends Shape Shifters and Project Blowed, Antimc jumps from genre to genre here, from street corner preaching boom-bap to dreamy summer field folk, always maximising his guests, including Busdriver and Andrew Broder of Fog. But this eclecticism flows naturally, and never feels scatterbrained or ADD-fuelled. It’s been nice to see cross-pollination between the US and the UK for this nu-underground hip-hop scene or whatever you want to call it, so it’s especially nice to see this released on local label Knife Fighting Monkeys, home of Penpushers. - Ali Maloney

The wise folks at Tiny Mix Tapes have asked me to keep some type of record of the RJD2/Busdriver/Happy Chichester tour. It’s a mix of photojournalism and my snooty opinions about stuff. Head over and check it out, I’ve sent them an intro and the first leg’s worth of updates.

I’ll be backing Busdriver on the first leg of the RJD2 US Tour. If you’re within 300 miles of any of these cities, come down and check out the show and see why RJ gets the big bucks and me and Bus get the big… uh… well, anyway, we put on a pretty decent show.