Madlib - Sound Ancestors [LP - Silver]

Release Date: 9/3/2021

Sound Ancestors, his new album, is a rare entry in his vast catalog to be billed straightforwardly as a Madlib solo release, not a collaboration with a rapper, or a record by one of several fictitious jazz players and ensembles he's invented, or an entry in an arcane thematic series. But it, too, is a joint effort, this time with Kieran Hebden, the electronic producer better known as Four Tet, who curated, edited, and arranged it's 16 tracks from a body of hundreds of recordings that Madlib sent him over a period of two years. Their process reminds me of 2003's Shades of Blue, which Madlib created by raiding the vaults of Blue Note Records, sometimes chopping the original jazz recordings intricately and sometimes letting them unfold for long stretches without much apparent editing. Now, Madlib is the one opening his archives, and Four Tet is the one listening and assembling.

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Tracklist

1. There Is No Time (Prelude)
2. The Call
3. Theme De Crabtree
4. Road Of The Lonely Ones
5. Loose Goose
6. Dirtknock
7. Hopprock
8. Riddim Chant
9. Sound Ancestors
10. One For Quartabê / Right Now
11. Hang Out (Phone Off)
12. Two For 2 - For Dilla
13. Latino Negro
14. The New Normal
15. Chino
16. Duumbiyay