January 29, 2021
Madlib Invazion
1xLP
There’s a certain dusty quality that sets Madlib and Four Tet’s music apart from their peers. Both build their songs from the samples up, and while doing so are always keen on leaving a certain patina of age to distinguish the source material as coming from a different place than the drums/bass/general wizardry of their own toil. It’s these antiquarian sensibilities — in coordination with their platonic ‘otherness’ — that makes Sound Ancestors, the first collaboration between the enigmatic producers, feel profound. While at its core it's a beat tape not unlike the bulk of both artists' respective catalogues, in effect Sound Ancestors plays much more like a communion of disparate eras, arranged and meeting on common philosophical ground.
IYL: J Dilla, Karriem Riggins, stayin' fly like the astral plane