Peter Project — Peter Project

Already a quiet force in the Canadian music scene (he also plays keyboards with The Bicycles and was a founding member of Toronto's The Midways), Peter Project sets out on his own into brave new territory with this electronic album reminiscent of early Ninja Tune classics. Littered with samples from rapping to old string sections, beats and space noises, this self-titled debut is a collage of mostly instrumental tracks with an impressive Canadian guest list. Wordburglar and Masia One help out on tracks, most of which are about space-age living, the future and science experiments. His scratching is pretty basic and the sampling, while fun and strange, doesn't veer as obscure as something Kid Koala would dig up. However, the beats, multi-layers of funk horns and a fresh hip-hop perspective help make this album competitive with today's best composers of the same ilk.