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"RetroSpectre is not a greatest hits collection, rather, as the title suggests, a journey back through an ILLustrious career spanning 10 years, 5 full-length albums, and numerous singles and remixes. In fact, most of the selections here are some of Spectre's more obscure productions culled from various compilations and B-sides as well as a few previously unreleased treasures from the vaults of The Other Side. Hand picked by The Ill Saint himself and digitally remastered, these tracks sound even better now than they originally did.
Not many artists working in the hip-hop idiom have attempted to build a career on instrumentals, but, then again, Spectre's aim has always been to blow away all preconceived notions of what music is, and wreak havoc on your mindstate. Since his opening salvo, 'Crooked', which first appeared on 1994's critically-acclaimed Crooklyn Dub Consortium: Certified Dope, Volume 1 (WordSound) and subsequently became the title-track for the WordSound film of the same name, The Ill Saint has consistently elevated his art with something original, innovative, daring, demented and downright dope.
Often misunderstood for the esoteric and occult knowledge forwarded in his moody, exotic beatscapes, Spectre stands alone in the musical field as a sonic shaman conjuring up images of the Unknowable and providing a gateway to The Other Side. While his sound is often described as apocalyptic, the end only marks a new beginning in his constantly evolving cycle in progress. His work can also be described as paranoid, claustrophobic, and foreboding, a fitting reflection of the world today where terrorism and plagues, Big brother and big business have reduced humanity to a sorry state. Spectre's solution is anarchy, if only in the mental.
For, in the end, music is only music, and sound, the abstract. world where rhythm is business, Spectre's art is warfare." -- W. Nobel Savage.
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