Its winter. It’s winter and it’s raining. It’s raining and my office is freezing. I wear a scarf about 16 hours a day. I used to dislike winter. I think I’m enjoying it this time around. I think I get it now. And this brings us to the subject of this post.

Almost a year after the first installment, Dropping Gems drop another fine compilation of dreamy, blueish, sugar coated yet frosted kind of beats. 20 gems are featured on this 72min long futuristic lullaby, and you can feel it’s Janurary throughout each and every one of them. The selection is key here, with all the tracks merging together so smoothly as the album slowly builds up, always retaining its mellow flow, yet gathering some more energy. It’s a bit useless to speak of genres in this case, since none of them have real names, but the influences are very varied, and it’s the passage from one to another here that binds the whole album together, giving it the edge that many beat compilations lack.

As far as names go, there are a few producers on here that i’ve been feeling in the past year or so, namely Mndsgn, LDFD and S. Mahabara. Others are getting more acknowledged lately such as Nocow, but mostly there are lots of names here that I’ve never encountered before. That’s a good thing, of course.

All these wonderful gems are waiting for you as a free download at the Dropping Gems bandcamp. Don’t think twice. Turn on the heat inside, get under the covers, and float on.