Is the album dead as a practical thing?

Maybe. But it seems to not matter for most folks as increasingly mp3s are snagged off blogs as single downloads, leaks or mixtapes. Of course, the difference between a mixtape and an album is becoming increasingly obscure. At the same time, though, the concept of compiling a sometimes random assemblage of sounds and passing it off as a cohesive whole has worked for a good many years while folks pass tapes back and forth.

With electronic music and hip hop being the most malleable of modern sounds, it makes sense that this practice of soldering together tracks has gained currency on the internets. So, we all should have figured that these Frankensteined pieces or work would eventually be available for sale.

Johnny Trunk isn’t a ‘mixtape artist.’ He’s a producer and entrepreneur. And everyone wants to make a buck, which may or may not account for his releasing Scrap Book last year.

Pretty frequently it’s easy to guess where beat music comes from. A European sense of lounge pervades a great deal of electro and hip hop. And while Johnny Trunk calls England home, most of what comprises Scrap Book could have come from any destination on the West Coast of the United states.

There’s an easy tone struck immediately with “Busy Busy.” It might be a highlight, but calling it a game after the first track seems premature. Arriving at “Fuddy Duddy” and it’s bouncy piano track supplemented with some outer space sounds, the track, in some ways, calls to mind Instrument from Fugazi.

That’s obviously an odd comparison to make. But Instrument, a soundtrack the group put out, is all shards of songs, almost complete, but not exactly. There’s a healthful dose of funk in there. And all of that is basically what Scrap Book was meant to be. Johnny Trunk just wanted these songs off his hard drive and on cd somewhere. Listeners should be pleased and so should Johnny Trunk as he’s unwittingly created an disc unintentionally broadening the limits of electronic music and hip hop.

Scrap Book won’t change the world, but if “Heavy” and it’s synthesizer drone can sit a few tracks away from the bossa nova that makes up “New Piano” everything seems right in the world. The only problem listeners might run into is that lack of cohesiveness. But honestly, it doesn’t matter when we’re dealing with sounds of this caliber. Boss sounds…