Tres Records, founded in 2004, has always been about vinyl. From the crackling, dusty records that are sampled to make the music Tres puts out to the actual slabs of wax it comes out on, the home of the “magic number” makes sure the platters matter. Until now, all of the rarities, b-sides, and remixes have been kept on plastic. With the release of vinyl-only CD, Tres Presents: Shipping and Handling, the vaults have been opened, cleaned out, and assembled for the listening pleasure of the non-wax connoisseur.

The collection starts off with the banging “Noonen” by flagship artist, Thes One. Instrumental to getting the label of the ground (both musically and literally), Thes’s already classic solo 12” explores the issues of getting older in this hip-hop world and is as perfect as a start to the comp as it was for the label. Featured a healthy six times on the Shipping and Handling (three solo and three with Raashan Ahmad from Crown City Rockers), Thes was also the man behind the scenes for Crown City Rocker Headnodic’s “Now A Daze” 12”. With a long working relationship and friendship, Thes suggested Headnodic submit some songs that would end up being on his Tres release. The Zion (of Zion I) laced “Now A Daze” fits perfectly along The Procussions fueled “The Drive” as both songs have a reflective/introspective vibe inspired by the moody production of Headnodic, who flashes more skills on the instrumental “Vallejo”. Tres’s full-length releasers, Giant Panda and Lightheaded, also show up on the compilation. Fans of both of their respective albums, Fly School Reunion and Wrong Way, will be thrilled to see the inclusion of the non-album cuts. GP gives up “GP Y’All”, “Plus Bonus Paty Cut”, and the Ohmega Watts remix of “T.K.O.” While Ohmega gave GP the remix treatment, Newman from GP returned the favor and flipped up “Uhh!” to a “new” direction, which is featured here along with the Lightheaded and friends’ posse cut, “Surprise Cypher II”. This version of “Surprise” is different than the album version and much sought after by DJs everywhere. Rounding out the comp is the sound of the “Lovelution” led by Detroit rocker, Ta’Raach. The artists formerly known as Lacks appears four times: twice on his on his own (“Yeah” and “Heaven”) and twice behind the boarders as Lil Sci takes the mic (“Hit Me” and “C.U.”). Lil Sci (of Scienz of Life aka John Robinson) gets the last word on the comp as “Hit Me” gets re-worked by SP (formerly of the Starving Artist Crew) on the appropriately titled “Hit Me (SP’s Phone Home Remix)”.

For the dedicated followers of Tres, Shipping and Handling is a compact, fully assembled reminder of all the current releases. For the uninitiated, it’s a cliff note of all the releases they missed or didn’t have a turntable to check out. And with the inclusion of the next installment of KTRS AM Radio, featuring Tres artist DJ Alibi, this compilation combo is also a sample of things to come.