Sortilège lives in a thick, haunted haze of hand-dug, sample-based mysticism. Opening with a twangy Arabic string instrument on Harmattan, Spire feels built from the bones of a long-lost prog record from Focus or The Doors, led by a swirling psychedelic organ. It feels ancient and cinematic, as a 1970s acid jam meets raw and murky boom-bap. The drums sound like a loose and earthy live band while the samples feel like a world tour through North African bazaars and shadowy sound archives.

Preservation builds beats that feel like wandering through a city at night, and Gabe ‘Nandez’s low-key delivery is the perfect match. Quietly menacing, he doesn’t shout or strain, delivering every bar with the calm precision of someone who’s seen too much. The verses are densely packed with internal rhymes from a man who’s learned not to flinch with stoic control held in tension against unearthly and unpredictable backdrops. Muay Sok is built on an Indian raga fragment, Bascinet holds the grit of a 1970s cop show with discordant horns curling through the mix like cigarette smoke, and billy woods adds extra nasty on War. Mondo Cane has slow drums and rolls like thunder, meditative, strange and beautiful. Nom De Guerre slips into French as the record hops from city to city whilst Ball & Chain brings soulful reflection on the topic of addiction. This is modern hip-hop that cares deeply about texture, with the residue of old tape loops and half-erased memories. The menace throughout Sortilège is real but understated. Crime, jazz, noir poetry, and stoner wisdom all rolled into one, whispering in your ear and haunting your subconscious with immensely deep production, murky and hissing with distortion. Somewhere between a back-alley deal and a fever dream, Sortilège is an underground triumph.