J Dilla: "Wild"

Barely available in 2003 as a vinyl-only German import, J. Dilla's Ruff Draft album gets the deluxe red carpet nod via Stones Throw's belated 2XCD reissue, expanded to include extra tracks and instrumentals. "Wild," the teaser track currently making the rounds online, is a demonic little ditty with an unhinged chorus that channels Minnie Mouse channeling Quiet Riot channeling Slade, while Dilla fires off a few verbal bullets over a carnival of slaphappy snares and skeletal handclaps. Threats are made to raise the roof, Ike Turner and Morpheus are name-checked, "hostile" and "hospital" are rhymed (apparently he'll get the first, and put you in the second, necessarily in that order). The strictly business delivery hardly detracts from the silly vs. spooky tension that catapults the song beyond mere water-treading.

A whiff of guitar here, a ghostly whistle there, "Wild" is an exercise in economy, patched together from a few beats and pieces expertly juggled and juxtaposed. Deceptively effortless in its minimalism, Dilla's lo-fi chop-socky is shot throughout with a touch of daft genius. Not quite as raw and vertiginous as tracks off last year's swansong Donuts (2006), nor as gleamingly triumphalist as the posthumous victory lap The Shining (2006), "Wild" is the sound of Jay Dee roaming the midnight streets of his imagination, a synapse-snapping delight from a lost master. Wild, indeed.