Producer and crate digger extraordinaire RJD2 announces his new album, Visions Out Of Limelight, out June 14th via RJ’s Electrical Connections, and shares its lead single/video, “Through It All” (feat.  Jamie Lidell). “Known for his masterful blend of sounds from all eras,” (AllMusic) RJD2 has stitched together an impressive career out of many projects: instrumental albums, international tours, credits for Mos Def, MF DOOM, Phonte, and beyond. Following 2020’s The Fun Ones, RJD2’s eighth studio album channels the underground veteran’s many influences — soul, funk, hip-hop, and more — into another sublime entry in his expansive catalog.

For Visions Out Of Limelight, RJD2 found inspiration in sources that can be taken for granted by less-discerning listeners. Thanks to time at home, RJD2 was completely immersed in the TV theme songs of the ‘70s, ‘80s, and ‘90s. “I realized how incredibly composed and skillfully complex many of them were,“ he says. The producer was also determined to build tracks around interesting bass lines, inspired by classic parts in Dr. Dre’s “Deep Cover,” KMD’s “Black Bastards,” and Diamond D’s “Sally Got a One Track Mind.” It became a “mini-mission” for the producer to make a modern album that puts the bass in the forefront.

While Visions Out Of Limelight is mostly an instrumental affair, today’s “Through It All” is one of two songs that sees RJ implement vocals in his production. On the soulful single, English singer Jamie Lidell croons and ponders his existence over piano stabs and a steady breakbeat. Of the song, RJ says: “I was listening to some classic Aaliyah and taking in how Timbaland used amorphous mouth sounds as a textural element. I put a bunch of ‘mouth water drop sounds’ into the MPC. From there, the song really built itself in the fashion you hear it – drums, chords, and vocals from the illustrious Jamie Lidell.” The video, directed by RJ and his son Charlie Kaiser-Krohn, sees RJ playing various percussion instruments in and out of his studio, including a raw performance of the “mouth water drop sound.”

Visions Out Of Limelight evokes the thrift-shop psychedelia of Paul’s Boutique. The aggro horn loop on “Wild For The Night” was inspired by the legendary Bomb Squad, while “What I Do, Man” and “Asphalt Lamentations” touch on the French house of Daft Punk and Ed Banger Records. Frequent collaborator Jordan Brown flexes his paranoid android falsetto to fit the loose groove of “Fools at the Haul.”  Most of the songs on Visions Out Of Limelight were recorded with live instrumentation while others were chopped and re-assembled via sampler “like the olden days,” RJD2 says. Good luck figuring out which drums are live or samples: with over 15 years of studio experience, RJD2 can create drum sounds that evoke the same grit and urgency of classic hip-hop breakbeats.

And the producer really did bury himself up to his neck in the dirt for the album art. It’s a dual homage to Funkadelic’s Maggot Brain and Redman’s Dare Iz A Darkside, two artists with enduring catalogs of no-bullshit, rock-solid music. RJD2 aspires to create a similar body of work, from his 2002 opus Deadringer on to the future. “I have come to terms with the fact that the most impactful and lasting effort I can put forth in my limited time on Earth is to leave behind the best music I can,” he explains. “The timeless nature of recorded music and its ability to touch an unknown future listener makes it as close to a worthy endeavor as I’ll ever attempt.”