Music reviews. CD reviews. Critically hip!

Not everyone agrees with me, but even if you call this crass commercial pandering (and I don‘t), this seems like a pretty cool concept. Toyota had an idea to market to a younger urban market and invested in a hip-hop label. Scion Records (named after the selfsame Toyota vehicle) has released a number of samplers of DJs, rappers, MCs and the like, and the result is…well, it sounds like somebody really gave a shit. The latest release is a mixtape from Buffalo, NY’s DJ Cutler, who won the Scion 2006 “Free Up Your Mix” DJ Contest. The disc is a killer, from beginning to end.

DJ Cutler is a record-crate scraper, a soundbox dumpster-diver who snips and clips and scratches from multiple disparate sources to put together a minimalist, funky, jittery set of joints that always seem to moving in a different direction from where you might expect. V. 16 has him laying his treatment over a gaggle of fixtures on Buffalo’s hip-hop scene. Cutler produces deceptively simple drum and bass beats that never fall into that rinky-tink thing that so many producers seem to so dearly love, and sprinkles a sample or two over them with an occasional surprise thrown in to make sure you're awake and paying attention (you will be, never fear) and the result, on tracks like “Step” and “Jungle V.I.P.” (along with damn near everything on this disc) are first rate. My own favorites are “Tuxedo Rap” a People Under The Stairs track that builds gradually but never overwhelms, and “Family Rap,” a funky instrumental that builds off of a James Brown (or is it Sly Stone? Or both?) sample.

Given that Cutler employs a minimalist approach to his mixes, it is pleasantly surprising that one can discover new things, it seems, on each track even after repetitive listening. With 24 tracks on this sampler, one would feel overwhelmed in the hands of a lesser host, but Cutler has got the goods to keep things moving without the listener often even being aware of it. Those of us who thought of Buffalo as a place you had to drive through to get to Niagara Falls will reconsider after hearing these joints. Highly recommended.