“One of last year’s great unheralded treasures was Rock Creek Park, a gorgeously lush mostly-instrumental rap album from the Washington, D.C. rapper/producer Oddisee. Oddisee’s latest project also makes great use of the man’s gifts for melody and arrangement. It’s Odd Renditions, a new EP of remixes and reworkings. On the EP, Oddisee takes apart and reassembles tracks from Bon Iver, Marvin Gaye, Metronomy, and K-Os, transforming all the songs into futuristic digital soul and adding his own no-nonsense rap verses.”

Stream or download the EP and watch the video for his remix of Marvin Gaye’s “Ain’t That Peculiar” over at Stereogum.

Tracklist / Usher – Think of You (Sam Champ Remix) / Michael Jackson – Butterflies (Dela Remix) / D’Angelo – Left & Right (Sam Champ Remix) / Hazel – The Mint / Knxwledge – I Can Love You / Knxwledge – Trust [Issues] / Freddie Joachim – Waves / Curren$y (f/ Big K.R.I.T. & Smoke DZA) – Skybourne / Lupe Fiasco – Paris, Tokyo / Amerie – Talkin’ to Me (Remix) / Knxwledge – Rock the Boat (Remix) / DaM-FunK – She Lights Me Up / DaM-FunK – The Sky is Ours / Full Crate & Mar – She Was Fly / RAMP – Everybody Loves the Sunshine (Remix) / Roy Ayers – Everybody Loves the Sunshine

“Throughout 4evaNaDay, none of K.R.I.T.’s vision is sacrificed to make a “club song,” or pen a track targeted for radio or women and no move seems label-directed. K.R.I.T.’s in that rarefied space – a deep, creative groove I tend to associate with Miles, ‘Trane, George Clinton/Parliament and maybe ‘Kast – where he relies on instinct, makes what he hears and leaves it to the listener to consume the material on his terms, not the other way around.”

“In all honesty, we’re not exactly sure how UK outfit Africa Hitech found the time to put together an exclusive mix for the XLR8R podcast series. Earlier this year, the duo of Mark Pritchard and Steve Spacek released its debut album, 93 Million Miles, and now, the pair is about to wrap up a lengthy North American tour, which actually comes to an end this weekend with a string of West Coast dates. In the middle of all this intercontinental activity, Africa Hitech did manage to assemble this podcast, pulling heavily from two genres in particular: footwork and drum & bass. While those genres are rarely uttered in the same sentence, the similar tempos and shared reliance on frantic percussion actually allow these seemingly disparate styles to mesh together quite nicely, a phenomenon that Africa Hitech explores at length on this mix. As one might expect given the genres involved, the mix is a wildly upbeat and energetic listen, but, more importantly, it shows that even in a post-everything electronic-music landscape, there are still exciting new sound combinations to be discovered.”

Key words here: “footwork and drum & bass” - just listen, you’ll thank me later (No Drake-o).