billy woods & Blockhead - Dour Candy

Backwoodz Studioz is excited to announce the July 2nd release of Dour Candy, a collaboration between Brooklyn-based rapper billy woods (formerly of the Super Chron Flight Brothers) and Manhattan producer Blockhead (Ninja Tune, Def Jux). The album is fully produced by Blockhead and sees woods joined on the mic by Aesop Rock, Open Mike Eagle, Elucid, Moka Only and L''Wren. This project comes at an interesting point for both artists; woods is fresh off the success of his critically-acclaimed opus History Will Absolve Me , an incendiary LP that left a heavy footprint on Best Of 2012 lists. For his part, despite a veritable canon of work with Aesop Rock and a series of successful instrumental records, 2013 represents a new direction for Blockhead. "I decided I wanted to do rap albums again and I just reached out to artists that I was a fan of," he explains. It has already been a busy year for the producer, who just released an album with indie veteran Illogic in April.

Dour Candy is billy woods'' first album working with a single producer, something that he had always wanted to do. "It is both a challenge and an opportunity," the MC says. "It''s a challenge because you have to work within the one framework and stay on the same page creatively. It''s an opportunity because, if done well, the result is so cohesive that you never have to worry, does this beat fit? Is this the right mood?"

That cohesiveness shines through on Dour Candy, an album thick with "mood," Blockhead''s versatile production shifting and moving beneath woods'' nimble baritone. The result is a 44-minute masterpiece of quiet intensity: New York City as a backdrop for a series of interconnected vignettes. woods is the cinematographer, setting the scene, his lyrics a steady reel of black-and-white images. Blockhead provides the score, lush arrangements that float easily between melody and menace. With Dour Candy, billy woods'' brings a keen eye and fresh perspective to themes of sex, drugs and cable news-all boiled down into this pulp paperback of an album.

The album will be available on CD and colored vinyl with artwork unique to each format, courtesy of London-based artist Ashes57.