Kevin Bronson on October 14th, 2016

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The Urban Renewal Project is a 13-piece collective masterminded by songwriter/multi-instrumentalist R.W. Enoch Jr. who scoop sounds from various genres like a sugar fiend at an ice-cream store and make their old- and new-school jams sound (to cop a line from a sportscaster) cool as the other side of the pillow. Their forthcoming new LP “21st Century Ghost,” produced by Neil Wogensen (of Valley Queen), features a host of guest singers, rappers and soloists — including, on the new single “Hide,” rapper Elmer Demond. Here, the band’s 10-piece horn section lays down blasts of vintage soul while singer Dustin Morgan (of orchestral rockers Archer Black) laments how easy it is in our virtual world to hide rather than engage. Demond punctuates the notion in the bridge, rapping that what we really need is a reality check.

It’s a common theme on the album, Enoch says. “Most of the songs discuss different side effects of society’s efforts over the last 100 years to build a technology-fueled utopia and the ways in which these efforts, which sought to bring us together, have actually further isolated us,” he says, noting that the band’s sampler-platter approach, at least, is musically unifying, “offering a little bit of something for every music fan inside — soul, disco, hip-hop, indie rock, funk, jazz and world fusion.”

The new single follows the release a month ago of the funkier “Don’t Ask Y,” which features Camp Lo. The release date for “21st Century Ghost” is yet to be announced.

||| Stream: “Hide” (feat. Elmer Demond)

||| Also: Stream “Don’t Ask Y” (feat. Camp Lo)