A majestic journey into sampled and recreated classic sounds with his own original, eccentric twists, Madlib, aka American rapper, producer and multi-instrumentalist Otis Jackson Jr's newest LP is in turn produced by Four Tet, aka Kieran Hebden, who himself released a couple of surprise albums on Christmas Day. Madlib is known for turning snippets into new gold, having worked variously with the recently departed (as Madvillain), another much missed genius, J Dilla (as Jaylib), Freddie Gibbs (as MadGibbs), and other personae such as Quasimoto, not to mention many clever plunderings of the Blue Note catalogue. In this album he captures tribute-laden sounds of black music history, from jazz to soul, African to hip hop, and at first listen is most reminiscent of the Delfonics, where on lead single Road of the Lonely Ones beautifully brings together two tracks by The Ethics, those Philadelphia soul pioneers. Hopprock's interweaving between gentle strings, African thumb piano, answering machine and assorted beats and voices is magical. Two for 2 is a two-part tribute to J Dilla, mixing spacey oddness with soul and groove, while Dirtknock is a minimal mix of voice, bass, clanky beats. Loose Goose is mesmeric mix of jazz, African and reggae, Latin Negro has Spanish guitar over a swishing brush drum. An album full of space and subtlety, invention and quirky charm, and around it, undying love for music past, forever reinvented into the present. Inspirational indeed. Out on Madlib Invasion.
Feel free to also check out our favourite albums of 2020 here:
Fiona Apple to Lianne La Havas to Yves Tumor: favourite albums of 2020 – Part 1
Agnes Obel to Bob Dylan, Phoebe Bridgers to Sault: favourite albums of 2020 – Part 2
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