The Architect

Rob Swift, one of the more innovative (and ultimately celebrated) turntablists of the past decade, has waited four years to release The Architect, his first album since gaining national attention with Mike Patton in the band Peeping Tom. The Jackson Heights, Queens, native has been working on incorporating classical music into hip-hop, and odds are he won’t do it in a way that’s particularly similar to how it’s been done (read: uncreatively) in recent major-label hip-hop singles. The Architect will be Swift’s first album since 2005’s War Games (though his earlier albums have had several re-releases since then), and it will be Swift’s first release on Patton’s Ipecac Records, which, for an interesting juxtaposition, released the Melvins’ Chickenswitch right before The Architect.