Inspired by a spree of creativity (and a subscription to Netflix), RJD2 released a new album last week under the alias The Insane Warrior.

We Are the Doorways is a 10-track instrumental project that RJ cooked up as an ode to sci-fi/horror films circa 1975-1984. He doesn’t specify exactly which movies sparked this endeavor, but RJ does offer some insight into the process at his website:

“It was really like the perfect antidote to the mentality i take into an rjd2 record; alot of this music is in ways the exact opposite of what i am usually trying to do. (The content of alot of these movies can be really fascinating as well.) So i became obsessed with this stuff for a period, enough so that i ended up making a record that was in a lot of ways an homage to this era of film scoring. It allowed me to escape the baggage that can come along with the continuing of a catalog. And it was FUN. I had a blast making it.”

As you’d expect, RJD2 doles out a dose of hearty drum samples (like on Then You Hear Footsteps below), but he also alters the mood with spaced-out synths throughout. The second half of the eight-minute Black Nectar, which drifts off into a hypnotizing swirl of synths, probably best illustrates the sci-fi sound RJ is going for here.

Overall, it feels a little more tightly focused than the past couple albums under the RJD2 name. And he’s having some fun with it by holding a contest to ask for artistic submissions that complement any of the tracks from We Are the Doorways.

• The Insane Warrior | Then You Hear Footsteps

Also, check out the video for The Water Wheel that premiered last week on XLR8R:

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