Alexander Spit's Mansions: Lose Yourself in 28 Tracks of Spooky Beats and Samples

That ethereal vibe you get from the above image? It's appropriate.

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Last fall, we told you about These Long Strange Nights, a then-new mixtape/album from S.F.-born, L.A.-based rapper-producer Alexander Spit. That was good stuff. But Spit came back yesterday with Mansions, a funky, spooky, mind-bending instrumental mixtape that's pretty damn engrossing. It shows Spit to be at least as talented at assembling soundscapes as he is at rapping -- and with no rhymes to mind, Mansions lets you focus on its ever-shifting textures and rhythms.

Spit himself bills Mansions as "a wide array of drugged-out 4 a.m. vibes to sample-heavy neck crampers," which is putting it pretty well. Some of the tracks here are wispy and ethereal, barely announcing their presence before they disappear; others are built on big, funky beats that beg for a huge car to bang out of. There's no rapping per se, but there are plenty of vocal samples: Slowed-down, pitch-lowered utterances, hilarious clips from television, and, on "DMT," one lengthy explanation (endorsement, really) of the psychedelic powers of the naturally occurring drug dimethyltryptamine. That track is lots of fun on its own, but this is whole mixtape is probably something you should hear:

Mixtape: Alexander Spit -- Mansions

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