I took a long 3am walk home from a friend’s house last night, toeing the yellow lines of empty streets dusted with Ottawa’s first real snowfall. It’s the only time of day that a pedestrian can leave the safety of the sidewalk and reclaim the road, and there’s a certain magic to a sleeping city wrapped in the night’s darkest cloth. As an additional bonus, I was not only equipped with an ipod bursting at the seams with new music to sort through, but also had a couple of hours to audition a good chunk of it uninterrupted.

Enter Pablo’s Turntable Technology. At the halfway mark of my urban hike, this gem of an album made itself heard. The smile started at the corner of my mouth, eventually spreading into a full grin by track five, and my jaw dropping by track seven.

The term ‘musical genius’ has been bandied about a lot through history, probably as early as Gregorian monks big-upping themselves for the latest religious floor-smasher; but I’ve gotta say that Pablo’s offering here has some serious genius forged into it. Take note that his track The Story of Sampling features several minutes of rhyme stitched together from dozens of sources. Or the sheer musicality of his woven harmonies, or the album as a whole shifting moods with every turn… fun to thought-provoking and back again.

Seriously; click the iTunes link and buy this thing.  You get over twenty-five tracks of awesomeness for ten bucks.

Pablo – The Story of Sampling
Pablo – Turn the Page