Jersey Engineering

The latest release from DWG is finally here, and this time it's... Emskee The Complex Engineer? Who's that? Well, if you've been picking up the Nick Wiz double-CD compilations (and if not, you should be), he's already been introduced to you, "this was my first artist I produced for when I started making beats." On volumes 1 and 2 (Emskee isn't on #3), the Emskee tracks were demos they recorded together for Emskee, who was looking to get a deal. ...But it turns out those tracks weren't the the sum of his demo material.

DWG has unearthed a whole boatload of additional, vintage material from Emskee, Nick Wiz (then going by the name of Kayzee the White Soul), and their DJ, Slyce. And the first record they pressed up is DWG011, The Complex Engineer EP - six killer demo tracks (none of which repeat the tracks from the Nick Wiz albums... even though that would've been welcome, anyway, just so we could have them on vinyl, too). Most are produced by Wiz, but one or two are actually by Kid Capri... See, Emskee was hired to ghostwrite for Capri's second album on Cold Chillin'. But that album wound up getting shelved, so he used that material for his own rhymes (these were just demo tapes, after all, so it's not like he was screwing over Capri or anything).

So, here's what you'll notice as soon as you lay this on your deck. First, Emskee has a direct, forceful flow. Not that he's all Waka Flocka on here; but he has a distinctly tough way of enunciating every syllable. And the other thing you'll notice is that the beats here sound busier than Wiz's usual, minimalist tracks, where he seems to boil everything down to one smooth loop and a drum track. Here shit's always happening, and it goes a long way in keeping the tracks energetic and alive.

So that's DWG011, which is limited to your standard (these days) 300 copies. It comes in a sticker cover and, as always, comes with an informative press sheet. Naturally, I recommend it. ;)

But that's not the whole story here. For the more hardcore collectors, they also released DWG012 at the same time. This one's extra-limited (175 copies), is pressed on dope, marbleized dark blue vinyl, and also comes in a sticker cover. This one was off the market already even before it was released, so you'll have to go a little further out of your way to track it down now, but it's cool.

DWG012 doesn't consist of more demo tracks, exactly. It's actually eight radio promos that he recorded for different hip-hip DJ shows. There are demos for Funkmaster Flex, Stretch Armstrong, Doo Wop, etc. And they're not just radio drops or anything, but full, proper songs recorded for (and about) the shows... like Ultramagnetics' "Chuck Chillout" or those classic, exclusive cuts on Red Alert's albums. Again, it's all produced by Nick Wiz (one beat is even kinda recycled here), and while these maybe aren't quite as objectively good, uniquely written songs as the ones on The Complex Engineer EP (and a lot of time is spent on redundant, name-dropping shout-outs on every track), The Radio Promos EP is kinda more fun. I mean, if you're only going to get one release, The Complex Engineer EP is the way to go (which is surely why DWG gave it the wider release); but this is a neat little treasure for collectors.

By the way, the Nick Wiz CDs and these new 12" EPs aren't the only releases from Emskee... in more recent years, he put out an indie album and 12" on Goon Trax; and he's also one half of a group called The Good People, who got my attention back in 2006 for doing an EP featuring guys like Kool Kim and Cadence. So, if you've been bitten by the Emskee bug, you'll surely want to track all that material down as well - he still sounds the same.

Nick Wiz - UGHH Exclusive?

Nick Wiz is back, with another double CD - 43 full-length tracks - of unreleased goodness from his vaults. Interestingly, Cellar Sounds volume 2: 1992-1998 is a ughh.com exclusive. That's fine with me, because they're a good, reliable store, and if more places carried it, I'd've still probably ordered mine from them. But it does make me worry about the future of this series... if only one website is carrying Volume 3, can we be secure in the hopes for a Volume 4?

But enough gray skies for now, let's just enjoy what we've got - another excellent collection of 100% previously unreleased songs. All your old favorites are back: Cella Dwellas, Shadowz In da Dark, Ran Reed, Pudgee, N-Tyce, Milkbone. And, like last time, Nick hits us off with brief notes explaining every single song in this comp. One small disappointment is no Lord Have Mercy. I was enjoying the idea of him having one show-stopper at the end of every disc #1. Also, artists we'd only been first introduced to in previous volumes of this series, like The Native Assassins and Tross, are back with more lost demos.

Highlights this go around? Well, UG comes pretty nice on a couple tracks, including the album's opener... It's titled "Intro," but it's a full song. N-Tyce brings a different style than we've heard from her before on "Bet You Didn't Know." Pudgee comes with a tight, but politically incorrect, sex track called "Sex Ghetto Styles." A group called Pure Sinister from North Carolina recorded a fresh, hardcore demo track called "You Know My Style." And my personal favorite is an oldie from Madhouse - Shabaam Sahdeeq/s first group from even before Shadowz In da Dark, called "The Boom Bip" that has the MCs and the producer both going outside of their normal lanes for a really funky, aggressively upbeat track.

I mean, don't get me wrong - I don't want to oversell this album. Sometimes the formula here can wear a little thin. A lot of the MCs here are good, but wouldn't particularly stand out in a crowded cypher; and they're often hampered by the need to kick a few too many corny 90's punchlines. Plus some of Wiz's lesser tracks can feel a little formulaic, especially if you're listening to this double disc set end-to-end. And while these compilations have taught me to appreciate a couple of these MCs a little more than I did when they were first coming out - cats like Milkbone or N-Tyce, they still fall more than a little short of genius.

But everything here is good, some of it's really good, and there's a lot of stuff here heads have been waiting to get their hands and ears on since the 90's. Plus, two CDs packed with over twenty full-length songs each is a hell of a lot of material for $14.97. I think you'd be really be cheating yourself to pass it up.

So, whither Volume 4? Man, I hope so! I'm still dying to hear those original Cella Dwellas tracks when Lord Have Mercy was a member, and the fact that Wiz keeps hitting us off with tons of material we've never even heard of means you just know he's got a lot more to go from almost these artists. So I'm sitting here with my fingers crossed that "ughh exclusive" isn't a bad sign. And, in the meantime, the liner notes of this set tells us what's on deck from Nick Wiz and No Sleep Records: Nick Wiz Presents Ran Reed "Respect the ARchitect."

The Imaginarium of Nick Wiz

You may remember me blogging about a great compilation of rare and unreleased recordings by underrated producer Nick Wiz a couple years ago called, Cellar Sounds volume one 1992-1998. It was just too bad, in this industry, we'd probably never live to see a volume 2, right? Well, thankfully No Sleep Records has proved us wrong - Cellar Sounds volume 2: 1992-1998 is here! And in many ways, it's even better than the first one!

Like the last volume, this one is a double disc set, giving us a whopping total of 41 full-length songs all produced, as the title would suggest, by Nick Wiz from 1992-1998. Well, except for one song, which was produced in 2000... but it's by Ra-fuckin'-kim, so I think it's safe to say we'll forgive him that. ;)

Now, you may remember in my write-up of the first volume that I was somewhat disappointed to see some previously released, and not necessarily all that rare, songs mixed in with all the treats, taking away space that could've been used for even more unreleased jewels. Granted, songs from Ecko's legendary Underground Airplay tapes are so rare, they're practically unreleased and earn a pass, but records like Main One's "Main Event" weren't remotely rare, much less unreleased. ...Well, volume 2 does away with all that jazz - you won't be rebuying a bunch of songs you already have this time - this collection does feature a handful more from those Ecko tapes (and frankly, I'm happy to see them get a proper, quality CD release), but otherwise it's essentially all 100% unreleased material this time around.

The collection of artists is pretty solid... there's a lot of Ran Reed a.k.a. Hitman, and a lot of Shabaam Sahdeeq and his associate crews: Shadowz In da Dark, Sinister Voicez, and an even earlier group he was in that you've probably never heard of called Mad House. I'm surprised there's no Chino XL (come on, we know there's more O.G. Poison Pen tracks sitting in those vaults!), and there's not as much Cella Dwellas or Pudgee material as you might expect... though there are a couple songs from UG's scrapped solo album and a track that was left off of Pudgee's unreleased King of New York, which is crazy, because it's better than most of the songs that were on there. There's one or two more by Milkbone, N-Tyce, plus some neat surprises by totally unknown, unsigned groups that Nick's worked with.

And, once again, there's a killer vintage Lord Have Mercy song at the end of disc 1 that's in the vein of the classic Cella Dwellas material. Are there more songs like this? Is he just going to slowly eek them out to us one song at a time... ahh! Driving me crazy! lol

Also, like the last volume, the insert opens up to brief notes by Nick on every single song, for example, "The Native Assassins were Black Sun and another MC named Fatal. This was before Shadowz In da Dark. We worked on a few records for this group before the Shadowz thing evolved." First class release all the way. It's just too bad none of this is on vinyl...

Oh wait! No Sleep also released a double LP called Cellar Selections 1. It's comprised more of songs from Cellar Sounds volume 1 than 2 (though there are a couple from 2 as well), and thankfully it focuses exclusively on the songs that haven't already been released on vinyl. So, no Ran Reed "Enough"s but plenty of Darc Mind "We In This"s. And best of all, it has an exclusive unreleased song by Pudgee called "Get Down." The 2xLP is limited to 250 copies, so you may have to work a little to find a copy, but believe me, it's worth it.

The music is great; the sound quality is great; the releases are top-notch all around... Let's just hope there are Cellar Sounds volume 3 and Cellar Selections 2 pending!