Apollo Brown Clouds (Coloured Vinyl) LP

Detriot beatsmith Apollo Brown has been a busy man since his 2007 debut Skilled Trade. Every year since, he's been releasing low-key beat albums to strictly underground audiences. Thus, until last year's The Reset, which escalated him to a considerable amount of acclaim throughout the blogosphere. Where The Reset managed to successfully counterbalance tarnished and grime-exposed beats with soothing, pastoral instrumentals, Apollo Brown's latest album is flourished in the latter; beautifully strung by blue-sky beats and sentimental instrumentation.

Right from the get-go Apollo wastes no time in painting us a picture of how he wants Clouds to sound. "Have you ever dreamed of a place / Faraway from it all / Where the air you breathe is soft and clean, and children play in fields of green", a soothing vocal croons on the opener "Sound of Guns". These are lyrics that perfectly depict the sounds heard throughout the album, and they range widely, but all encompass the core fundamental ideas of optimism, youth, and nostalgia.

At a colossal 27 tracks thick, one may worry Clouds would suffer from its own length, though the opposite is true. Most commonly tracks clock in at just over two minutes, resulting in a quickly paced listen; its smoothly layered instrumentals gliding in and out to flawless transition. Clouds is undoubtedly one of the most fully-rounded releases of the year, shunning the cold grips of time as almost an hour of music floats by in an eased gorgeousness; making it the one of the instrumental hip-hop album's to beat in 2011.

Tracklist:

1. Sound of Guns
2. Blue Ruby
3. Never in a Million Years
4. Balance
5. The Eleventh Hour
6. Wisdom
7. Black Pearls
8. Shoot The Heart
9. Push
10. One Chance
11. Human Existence
12. Know the Time
13. Heirloom
14. Seed of Memory
15. Bridge Through Time
16. Just Walk
17. Shadows of Grief
18. Time Passed Autumn
19. Choices
20. Father and Son
21. A Conscious Breath
22. Drinking Life
23. Imagination
24. Too Te Ching
25. Heart of Glass
26. The Baghdad Sun
27. A Day's End