Madlib's
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,
Hebden's sonic fingerprints are all over it, and it's 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 producer's 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 Quartabê/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 doesn't 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