Eliot Lipp

In life as in music, Eliot Lipp gets around. Born and raised in Tacoma, Wash., the peripatetic beatsmith has scuttled between San Francisco, Chicago, L.A. and finally Brooklyn, soaking up bits of the local cultures and incorporating them into his ever-evolving style. His hip-hop underpinnings draw equally upon bicoastal classics and his backpacker contemporaries, while Chicago's post-rock and dance-music histories both imprinted themselves on Lipp's sound. Lipp released his eponymous debut album in 2004, for Eastern Developments. (That the label is run by Prefuse 73 offers some indication of Lipp's style.) After moving to Hefty for a pair of albums and further singles, Lipp hit his stride with 2007's City Synthesis (Metatronix), a merger of battered drums and Rhodes-led melodies, and 2008's The Outside, on the avant-leaning Mush label. In early 2009 he followed up with Peace Love Weed 3D, his most confident and far-reaching album yet.