Ol' Dirty Bastard - Return To The 36 Chambers: The Dirty Version Instrumental (2LP + 7")

For anyone who grew up with Ol’ Dirty Bastard’s debut on repeat, the instrumental edition is like walking back into the same chaotic flat after the party has ended. The mess is still there, but now you can study the wallpaper. Return To The 36 Chambers: The Dirty Version Instrumental pulls the spotlight off ODB’s slurred brilliance and sets it on the production that held everything together, mostly from RZA with key contributions from True Master. The original album landed on Elektra in 1995 with “Shimmy Shimmy Ya” and “Brooklyn Zoo” blasting from car stereos and corner-store radios. Years later, Get On Down gave the beats their own room on a double LP, which turned a long-standing DJ tool into a proper listening experience for fans who always suspected these grimy loops had a life of their own.

The beauty of this set is how it reveals the design behind the disorder. Take “Shimmy Shimmy Ya.” Without ODB’s sing-song hook, the piano loop feels more crooked, the drums more rubbery. It’s a pockmarked little groove, stitched together with grit, and you can hear how every clipped chord was placed to make space for those ad-libs you still hum while flipping through sleeves. “Brooklyn Zoo” hits like a steel door slamming shut. The kick and snare are downright primitive in the best way, a stomping gait that lets the siren-like stabs flash and fade. What felt like a wild outburst in full-vocal form becomes a masterclass in negative space, the kind of beat young MCs try to jack for freestyles.

Deeper cuts make the case that ODB’s LP might be RZA’s most unruly canvas. “Raw Hide” creeps forward on a smoky bassline and chimes that ring like a busted clock, and without the chatter you catch tiny edits on the tail of each bar. “Hippa to da Hoppa” bounces on a gummy drum loop and bluesy fragments that feel pulled from a crate kept under a leaking sink. “Snakes” is all jittery keys and low-end murk, a paranoid walk through a late-night Chinatown alley. Even “Baby C’mon” shows off the trick RZA perfected in this era, where something that sounds tossed-off at first starts to feel hypnotic by the third minute. The cuts that were crowded on the vocal album suddenly breathe. You hear the room tone, the dust in the samples, the little fader moves that guided ODB through each verse.

What this collection also nails is a sense of place. Mid-90s New York rap was cold, quick, and funny, and these beats capture that weather. You get brief flickers of kung-fu ambience and stray radio noise, but nothing is cushy or glossy. The low end is boxy, the snares slap like cracked wood, and the loops wobble just enough to feel human. That was part of the spell back then. Wu-Tang’s universe felt hand-built, and Return To The 36 Chambers vinyl wore that on its sleeve. Hearing the instrumentals on their own underscores how intentional the grime was. This is not lo-fi for its own sake, it is a set of rooms designed to make one of rap’s most unruly voices sound right at home.

Collectors have circled this one for years, first as a tool for DJs and then as a proper release in its own right. The Get On Down issue on double LP is the copy that turns up most often in shops, and it sits neatly next to other Ol’ Dirty Bastard albums on vinyl. If you’re crate digging at a Melbourne record store, it is the kind of thing you find tucked behind the main album, then spend the tram ride home replaying “Brooklyn Zoo” in your head while the needle drops on the beat-only version. If you buy Ol’ Dirty Bastard records online, this is the sleeper choice that ends up spinning more than the regular LP when mates come over and you want to freestyle, cook, or just let the lounge fill with that off-kilter swing. People searching for Ol’ Dirty Bastard vinyl or Return To The 36 Chambers vinyl will know the feeling, and it is the same in any city. For anyone hunting vinyl records Australia wide, it is a reliable door into a classic.

The punchline is simple. Stripped of its star, Return To The 36 Chambers: The Dirty Version Instrumental proves the house was rock solid. ODB animated it, sure, but the floors and walls were built to last. Play it loud, pour something cheap, and let the loops do the talking.