Few artists can combine uncomfortable with catchy; paranoiac with headnodding; morbid with springy. It's hard to scare the sh!t out of you while simultaneously keeping your foot moving. Rapper, producer and Def Jux founder El-P knows how to get to parts of the brain others can't. As a solo artist and frontman for seminal hip-hop group Company Flow or producer of Cannibal Ox, Cage, Mr. Lif, Aesop Rock, NIN, Beck, The Mars Volta, an EL-P production can drive you to hide underneath the bed, punch a wall and nod your head all at the same time. Which brings us to Weareallgointoburninhellmegamixxx3. It's another unique release in the artist's catalog. In the tradition of Company Flow's Little Johnny From The Hospitul (1998), EL'S own Collecting The Kid (2005), and more recently Weareallgoingtoburninhellmegamixxx2 (2007), Hell3 is a fully realized suite of instrumentals that continues to exemplify the producer's versatile, otherworldly, futuristic and wholly original sonic worldview.

As the album title implies, EL-P creates a dark, dystopian sonic universe filled with ominous basslines and thumping, punishing drums. Comprised of original instrumentals as well as remix instrumentals to Kidz in the Hall's "Driving Down the Block" and Young Jeezy's "I Got This," Weareallgointoburninhellmegamixxx3 represents songs that were meticulously crafted yet never found a home on a proper release. While sonically different from J Dilla's instrumental masterpiece Donuts, that album would prove inspirational to EL-P. "Like Donuts, I wanted to keep things short and to the point. I think that's an aspect of instrumental music that so many more people can relate to. I didn't want anyone to listen to this record and at any point get bored."

While the producer is currently working on the follow-up to 2007's I'll Sleep When You're Dead, Weareallgointoburninhellmegamixxx3 functions as both a stopgap and standalone album. 'This was a chance for me to give something to my fans as a reward for their patience as I worked on my new record. I look at this new one as a proper album. Me calling it a Megamixxx is just an excuse to get to Volume Three of anything.'

1. Tasmanian Pain Coaster 6:54 2. Smithereens 4:32 3. Up All Night 2:36 4. Emg 4:31 5. Drive 4:13 6. Dear Sirs 1:32 7. Run the Numbers / Aesop Rock 4:41 8. Habeas Corpses (Draconian Love) / Cage 4:34 9. The Overly Dramatic Truth 4:30 10. Flyentology 4:01 11. No Kings 3:05 12. The League of Extraordinary Nobodies 2:34 13. Poisenville Kids No Wins/Reprise (This Must Be Our Time) 7:00

When a hip-hop album opens with a collaboration with modern-day prog-rockers the Mars Volta, you know to expect the unexpected. That's pretty much what Brooklyn's El-P (born Jaime Meline) has been delivering since day one, first as a member of now-defunct indie-rap heroes Company Flow and later as founder of the maverick New York label Definitive Jux. Trent Reznor and Cat Power also show up on his first new release in five years, but El-P remains the one to watch, rattling off his typically complex rhymes about the state of the world (and the bedroom) over the cling-clang of industrial beats and frenzied noise. It's dense and weird and sometimes even scary, all of which makes it a marked improvement over the usual Saturday night boom-bap. --Aidin Vaziri