Who is this Clutchy Hopkins? According the notes on the album art for his latest Walking sdrawkcaB, (Backwards get it?) Clutchy is some old grizzly-frazzled dude who made some beats back in the day only to be found at a yard sale in 1992. Apparently taking a break from training with Japanese monks, the man, the myth finally reared from the shadows in 2006 as The Life of Clutchy Hopkins under the Misled Children imprint. Either way, the story of Clutchy Hopkins seems like one of two things: A, he really is the son of a Motown engineer now gnarly old fart mysteriously mailing postcards from the Philippines or B, it’s all just a clever marketing ploy to create some sort of online sensation to get more people talking or even more scans? Perhaps succeeding on both levels because we’ll probably never really know who this Clutchy is (Shadow? Cut Chemist? Madlib?) and there has been a slight buzz of curiosity behind his story. There is one thing that is for certain about Walking Backwards. The disc is chock full of slick jazz/funk fusion hip-hop beats that plays out like a soundtrack to the life of the Clutchster himself. Production is obviously the star here with little to no lyrics (with the exception of “Love of A Woman,” which features the vocal stylings of Darondo). Maybe even one upping the current beat-makers who’re on the old-school drum, instrumental hip-hop tip. Walking Backwards is nice change of pace from the norm as far as instrumental discs goes, with many using more samples and synthesizers than actual live instrumentation, with Hopkins apparently manning nearly all of the instrumentation. As a result, Clutchy proves that he’s hipper than your average bum off the street, and he can play a mean flute . . . and drums, and organ, and harp. . .

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