On June 30th, E1 Music will release the new album from “Wu-Tang”, entitled “Chamber Music”. That is not to be confused with The Wu-Tang Clan, it’s just labeled as “Wu-Tang”. What does this mean exactly? Lord knows, there have been tons of albums with the Wu insignia on them over the years, some used to peddle new artists, others to compile lost tracks.

What we do know about this album is that it is executive produced and overseen by The RZA, however the music will be live instrumentation, much like what we heard from the El Michels Affair, but instead backed by fellow Brooklyn soul outfit, The Revelations.

“This album has a very live element of today’s musicians playing the vibe of Wu-Tang, know what I mean? The vibe we would normally sample, the vibe of things that we would accumulate through old soul songs, jazz songs, kung fu movies whatever, now you’ve got musicians that can play this vibe with Wu-Tang MC’s rapping over it,” said RZA, probably in a mush-mouthed, lispy voice.

“The goal of this album is definitely paying homage to our early sound. In the old days, we had to sample and find snares and things like that or chord changes just to make a beat. Now, this is being done it with a band. A lot of times, you hear rappers over a live band and that loses the hip-hop because a lot of those bands from the old days wasn’t from the hip-hop generation. On this album, we make it sound like it was in the 36 Chambers era. To me, what also adds to this album, you’ve got the Wu-Tang MCs, but you also got your other favorite MCs from that era like Havoc, Cormega and others. This album can be played with a live band and it will sound BIG,” he added.

So the live element is what separates this from being a Wu-Tang Clan album? Sort of. Pretty much everyone in the clan is involved here including RZA, Ghostface Killah, U-God, Masta Killa, Inspectah Deck, Raekwon, and even ODB. Curiously though, Method Man and GZA/Genius are nowhere to be found. Perhaps that is the reason the word “Clan” is not in the artists name….? Or maybe contractual obligations with SRC? Who knows, but the cover image of only six silhouettes is telling…

Regardless, what we’ve heard so far sounds great, and as an added bonus each AZ, Havoc of Mobb Deep, Cormega, and Sean Price make appearances, plus there are no lame Wu-affiliates stinking up the booth. The album is available now digitally at Amazon.Com…. Review coming soon…. – DJ Pizzo