The track marks the first single from producer/DJ’s upcoming album, Visions Out of Limelight
RJD2 has announced a new album, Visions Out of Limelight, and enlisted English singer-songwriter Jamie Lidell for the first single, “Through It All.”
“Through It All” is one of two songs on the record that finds RJD2 incorporating vocals into his mesmerizing, sample-filled collages. The track (and video) opens with RJD2 flicking his cheeks then using those “mouth water drop sounds” as a jumping off point into a song that blends the soulful and strange. (RJD2 co-directed the “Through It All” video with his son, Charlie Kaiser-Krohn.)
In a statement, RJD2 said he got the idea for the “mouth water drop sounds” after listening to “some classic Aaliyah and taking in how Timbaland used amorphous mouth sounds as a textural element.” He added: “From there, the song really built itself in the fashion you hear it — drums, chords, and vocals from the illustrious Jamie Lidell.”
Visions Out of Limelight marks RJD2’s first solo album since 2020’s The Fun Ones, though it also follows his 2022 collaborative record with STS, Escape From Sweet Auburn. Along with Lidell, the album features vocal contributions from frequent collaborator Jordan Brown.
Much of Visions Out of Limelight was recorded with live instrumentation, though plenty of other instrumentals were chopped up and reassembled with a sampler. The album draws on a variety of influences, from French house to bass-forward hip-hop to TV theme songs from the Seventies, Eighties, and Nineties: “I realized how incredibly composed and skillfully complex many of them were,” he said in a statement.
Visions Out of Limelight Track List
1. “Cold Eggs”
2. “Catch the Exit Door”
3. “Through It All” (Feat. Jamie Lidell)
4. “What I Do, Man”
5. “Es El Nuevo Estilo”
6. “Resting on the One”
7. “Fools at the Haul” (Feat. Jordan Brown)
8. “Wild for the Night”
9. “Another Dime From Messoud”
10. “Apocalypse March”