RJD2

Move over, Moby. If underground hip-hop artists like DJ Shadow once felt threatened by RJD2’s runaway success, they can rest assured: for RJD2, electronica is the new hip-hop.

Philadelphia DJ RJD2’s third solo release, aptly named “The Third Hand,” is more of the same but less of the old. That is, the album is still distinctively RJD2, but in his latest release the turntable auteur moves farther away from his hip-hop roots and toward a more indie sound.

On first listen, the mellow beats and serene vocals make “The Third Hand” seem like any other quasi-electronic album. But when you realize that RJD2 (born Ramble John Krohn) wrote, recorded, and produced the entire album by himself in his basement studio, it’s hard not to be impressed by the scope of the project or the seemingly limitless number of tracks making up each song. Among other instruments, RJD2 uses electric guitars and pianos, synthesizers, an MPC 200XL sampler, and his own vocals on nearly every track—no small feat.

But the energy of RJD2’s unique compilations wears off after about the fourth track, once it becomes apparent that nearly every song has the same intro.

First there’s about ten to 20 seconds of lethargic high-pitched electronic tones; then come the backbeat and drums; and finally, ten to 20 seconds later, the vocals. “Beyond,” “Murs Beat,” and “Get It” are striking examples of this formula.

“Beyond” is also easily the best track on the album. The mixing at the beginning of the song is so smooth that the vocals sound like electronics and the drums, once added, never disappear entirely, so the song has a more natural consistency than others on the album. “Murs Beat” is “The Third Hand” at its most experimental, as the drums and any trace of hip-hop vanish in the middle of the song and are replaced by Gregorian chant-like vocals. On the whole, the shorter cuts—“Someday” and “Laws of the Gods”—are the weakest ones, largely because they seem like unfinished projects. By the time the electronics, the vocals, and the drums come together, the tracks are nearly over.

Lyrically, the album is wholly unsatisfying, primarily because the words don’t seem to mesh with the other elements of any given track. For the most part, though, this shortcoming does little harm because the vocals blend into the mélange of other sounds.

That’s why the lyrics don’t annoy, even when he sings “We grew up quick/ We get drunk quick” to twinkling piano notes that sound like they came out of a Gameboy in the album’s second track, “You Never Had It.”

If anyone should be bothered by the album, it would be the hip-hop diehards who first embraced RJD2’s experimental approach to the genre.

“The Third Hand” is a real departure from RJD2’s earlier solo releases (“Dead Ringer” in 2002 and “Since We Last Spoke” in 2004) and even “Magnificent City,” a 2006 collaboration with rapper Aceyalone. “The Third Hand” makes heavy use of the sampler and the synthesizer, and represents a move away from the DJ’s previous beat-mixing to a focus on electronics.

“Have Mercy” and “Reality” are the songs that are closest to RJD2’s earlier work, but it would still be a stretch to call either track hip-hop.

Fans of the old RJD2 have some adjusting to do.