Artist: Air 2 A BirdAlbum:

Crow HillRelease date: July 22Rating (Skip, Stream, or Buy): Buy — you can even name your priceListen:

Stream the record via BandCampJust 72 short hours after leaving the country for a three-month tour reaching Europe, the Middle East and Africa, local rapper Gabriel Teodros found himself back in New York City after being denied entrance to London’s Heathrow Airport. The tour had to be cancelled, but not all was lost: 14 days in an NYC studio with Lovework collaborator Amos Miller resulted in a new 12-track record. True to the name of the album and the group, each track samples the outbursts of a different bird ranging from the crow to more pleasant songbirds. But just as much as those songbirds, even the crows match their track’s specific mood in a very impressive way. Less obvious are the electronic quirks laced throughout the record–no doubt either a benefit or consequence, depending on your angle, of the album’s production tools being limited to GarageBand. But what makes the record more than just unique are the artists’ trademark political poetics–at their sharpest, too–that prove great music can come from ruffled feathers.