Benz and a Backpack

After teasing us with this trailer a couple weeks back, Detroit-based super(b)-producer Hir-O released his debut instrumental album The Voyage Home this morning. If you were on Hir-O and Doss The Artist’s top-notch album Computer Blue, you’ll recognize a couple of the cuts (“Headlock”, “I and I”, “Outer Blue”). After just one listen, what really stuck out about The Voyage Home was how musically progressive it is. You can hear Hir-O’s influences: he fuses Dilla’s rhythmic complexity with Pete Rock’s musicality, Madlib’s adventurousness with Ski’s knack for the groove. But there is not a shadow of a doubt about who is at the helm of this space-bound ship; Hir-O is deliberate, tasteful, and engaging throughout. Straight from his BandCamp, where you can get the album for free:

This album is both a literal and metaphorical allusion to my Voyage Home to Detroit after graduating from College. Creatively highlighted by my reconnection with the powerful cultural legacy that defines Detroit. This album is an anthology of audio that forms a gradient ranging from electronic inspired sounds-capes to that Real Live Detroit Sh*t.

The Voyage Home is a globe-trot through muddy electronic waters into the pit of Voltron’s chest cavity, transcending into a soul legacy of movement music for gator walkers and fitted-tippers.

The Voyage Home is an Audio Headlock, an Urban Phantasm, a Negro Shrine.

Following the success of The Tomorrow People, Doss The Artist’s Computer B!ue, and various efforts as a producer for the Michigan hip-hop collective BLAT Pack, Hir-O releases his debut instrumental album.

And after many pursuits of the truest measures, Hir-O makes The Voyage Home.

Tweet This Post