Max D, Many Any1432 R

As D.C.’s underground dance, noise, hip-hop, and R&B scenes continue to overlap and blur, one of the pivotal people is Max D, the producer/DJ with many other aliases and one given name, Andrew Field-Pickering. His Future Times label has branched out to include singles by young D.C. vocalists—Nappy Nappa, Dreamcast, and Sir E.U—over the past year or so, and his semi-secret pop-up record store in Mount Pleasant is a good place to bump into various characters. He’s still cranking out high-quality solo records regularly, too, of course. Many Any, his latest, also happens to be the first full-length LP on 1432 R, another D.C. label that serves as a node for beat-driven artistry. On this one, Max is all about getting from a busy-busy point A (the rugged album-opener “I Think Our Souls Are Other People”) to a cooled-out point B (the new-jack “Cuz Its The Way”). Even the field recordings (“Boo Sneeze,” “Snow Melting”) have rhythm. And don’t forget about Beautiful Swimmers, Field-Pickering’s DJ duo with Ari Goldman (who runs his own label, World Building). They’ll be spinning April 13 at U Street Music Hall as part of the DMV Deep party.

RIYL: Bobbing your head on multiple planes.

Model Home, model home 6

Self-Released

Similarly prolific is Nappy Nappa, the D.C. rapper/vocalist who inspires the occasional mosh pit and has no fear of an experimental music venue like Rhizome. He and digital-fuzzbomb wizard Pat Cain started their wild-and-woolly Model Home project in the middle of 2018, and they’ve now self-released a half dozen albums on Bandcamp. The latest, model home 6, is almost sweet, if that adjective even applies to collaborations that fuse loudly decaying beats with off-the-cuff verbalizations. Nappa sounds fearless here, as if whatever monster awaits around the corner is just another potential listener. Cain, meanwhile, keeps the pot ever-bubbling.

RIYL: MCs at the edge of panic.

Jeremy Hyman, FT048A

Future Times

If you’re new to the Future Times catalog, the latest 12-inch single from Jeremy Hyman is as good an entry point as any. There are 4/4 dance rhythms, but the real joy is in the accents; Hyman is a percussionist at heart, and he also pulls a weird warmth from synths. The record is titled FT048A, and a B companion is on the way soon, Future Times says.

RIYL: Polyrhythms and dub echoes.