The Wagon Repair artist stable isn’t the first place one would expect to find Jules Chaz. The label is home to techno dudes (and dudettes) like Mathew Jonson, Seth Troxler, and Dinky, to name a few, yet the Canadian imprint is still about to release the debut album from this one-time jazz percussionist and Cobblestone Jazz affiliate from Victoria, British Columbia. As it turns out, Toppings is the first-ever instrumental hip-hop album to be released on Wagon Repair, and it shares a lot more sonically with like-minded West Coast beatmakers several hundred miles to the south in Los Angeles than it does with the music being turned out by his Canadian techno brethren. “Blak Lodge” gets extra bonus points for its liberal sampling of the Twin Peaks theme, as Chaz expertly slices up those somber tones over some just-bumping-enough beats and a smattering of tweaky psychedelic synths.

Toppings will be released on September 14.

Blak Lodge