Following suit with piecemeal releases from his Freestyle Fellowship brethren (a la Timetable, Suther’n Fried Chicken and even Accepted Eclectic), Self Jupiter steps to the plate with his first respected release of this stature. As the more elusive limb of the Fellowship tree, Jup, who spent a portion of the 90′s incarcerated, blossoms as a sort of psychedelic ecclesiastic on Hard Hat. Where Mikah 9 has toyed with R&B croons, P.E.A.C.E. with Down South bubblers and Acey continuing with his accepted-eclecticism, Self Jupiter remains the more wilder flower of the 4. While it’s evident the timespan throughout Hard Hat, 17 tracks (including some interludes, live stuff and the intro and outro) scans almost 10 years worth, Jupiter remains totally various and often off-the-wall on every song (that’s a good thing).

“4808-4911-A” and wildly swinging bop from ’93 featuring Aceyalone capsules the essence of Project Blowed at the height of its fruitfulness. Newer, previously released works in “May Day”, “It Was On This Night” and the fantastic “The Sun Took A Day Off And The Moon Stood Still” (also featuring Ace) prove Jup’s uncharacterizable presence. “May Day” a well executed, lengthy listing of encouragement from Jup provides interesting substance, “It Was On This Night” furnishes a squirmy discomfort as he slides in and out of slow burning O.D. beat while “The Sun Took A Day Off.” proves an uncanny ability and potential in story telling, something Jup achieves so vividly that at times it’s frightening.

And as the piecemeal albums go, for the most part, the track listing is totally unmatched so for the unlearned non-underground super-tape-heads you may have trouble following the album’s path, yet along the ride keep an ear out for the jazzy-shot of “Misery And Co.” and the rugged “Life Doesn’t Get Better Than This”. Including the aforementioned works of art, all act marvelously as a primer for what will most certainly be a totally engaging, totally unique in itself, proper Self Jupiter solo release (as mentioned in the liner notes as “J.Hitchcock Presents: Drama Theatre Vol. 1″).