Damu the Fudgemunk is a remarkable hip-hop producer, his cuts balancing 4/4 listenability with tasty confections of off-kilter grace beats and textural expressivity. Now the Redefinition Records label has collected 27 Damu cuts from the 2000s to create How It Should Sound Volume 1 & 2, a two-LP (and downloadable) collection. Much of the music predates Damu’s 2007 debut album, Travel at Your Own Pace. The earliest piece, “Gestation,” from 2003, puts a loping beat below melting horns and a low-slung bass guitar. Like DJ Premier, Damu favors jazz samples truncated for head-nodding loops. Listening to him at his best is to appreciate the malleability of the source material, both in its unintended reutilization and the way the transformations bear the imprint of the appropriating creator.
It’s available at damuthefudgemunk.bandcamp.com.