Sound Ancestors (Arranged By Kieran Hebden)

Madlibs Sound Ancestors was assembled over the course of several years, as the visionary producer sent hundreds of unfinished beats and studio sessions to longtime friend Kieran Hebden (Four Tet), who edited and arranged them into an album meant as a stand-alone, start-to-finish listening experience. Though billed as a Madlib solo album, Hebdens sonic fingerprints are all over it, and its sometimes reminiscent of downtempo Four Tet as well as the freewheeling collage styles of the Madlib Medicine Show, Beat Konducta, and Rock Konducta releases. Instead of focusing on a certain genre, location, or era, Sound Ancestors reflects the producers wide-ranging influences, just as comfortably pulling from post-punk and psych-rock as from fusion and Brazilian jazz. The album similarly darts between different moods and atmospheres. Road of the Lonely Ones is Madlib at his most heartbroken, backing the smooth harmonies of the obscure Philly soul group the Ethics (lamenting Where did I go wrong? Did I ever treat you bad?) with booming drums and airy guitar lines. Other tracks are more abstract and playful, such as the dubby, angular Loose Goose, which finds room for both Snoop Dogg and Renaldo & the Loaf, or the madcap One for Quartabe/Right Now, filled with jittery, DOOM-like drums and Busta Rhymes trash talk. Dirtknock flips a Young Marble Giants sample into a tight but wobbly groove, filled with ear-catching interruptions, and the very Four Tet-sounding Hopprock attaches a flashback-like sequence of abrupt samples (dog barks, junglist shouts, disembodied syllables) to a yearning guitar pulse and crackling drums. The title track begins with a minute of gamelan drumming that rushes like a river, then segues into a free jazz passage with scattered drums and fluttering flute trills. Latino Negro similarly steps away from hip-hop, showcasing beautiful classical guitars and intricate, rollicking drumming, and leaving them mostly untouched apart from a brief bit of cavernous dub echo. Two for 2, filled with choppy soul samples and psychedelic phasing effects, is dedicated to J Dilla, and while Sound Ancestors as a whole seems as lifetime-encompassing as Donuts, it doesnt feel quite as focused. Still, it sounds recognizably like both Madlib and Four Tet while taking their music into directions where neither artist has ventured before, and its highlights are life-affirming. ~ Paul Simpson