Detroit’s Black Milk has been a reliable source of well-crafted astral boom-bap for the last half decade.

2008′s Tronic and Caltroit discs laid out the rapper/producer’s stall, and 2010′s Album Of The Year featured spots from Elzhi and Danny Brown. Last year was a busy one: his Random Axe supergroup (also featuring Guilty Simpson and Sean Price) dropped their debut LP, and MIlk teamed up with Brown again for a natty 10 track LP. This year, however, has been quiet – something rectified at the last minute with this snappy tape of unheard demos.

His works are definitely in the J Dilla mould of spacey head-nod, but Demo Beats 2012 has some neat tricks up its sleeve; some of the beats here nod to Jnerio Jarel scrambled sci-fi, and the closing cut has some of the rootsy charm of classic Madlib. There’s even a serrated version of Hot Butter’s ‘Popcorn’ bunged in for good measure. [via Potholes In My Blog]