Listening to music can be a way of making it. Few artists understand this better than Madlib. Across dozens of releases and nearly as many alter egos, the West Coast hip-hop producer, DJ, multi-instrumentalist, and de facto archivist born Otis Jackson Jr. has worked chiefly by flipping cherished records from his collection, inviting audiences to hear what he hears: the unique emotional texture of this particular vocal line, a saxophone solo distilled to its most elegant single bar. Madlib places these moments at the center of our attention, stuttering and alive, their significance impossible to ignore for those of us who might miss it otherwise. Cue up one of his beats side-by-side with its source material and you may be surprised at the similarity. But such an attempt at demystification would miss the point of his music. Some producers specialize in manipulating their samples until they are unrecognizable; for Madlib, the hearing itself—the noticing—is as important as whatever happens after that.

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 its 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.

1.

There Is No Time (Prelude) 01:16

2.

The Call 02:05

3.

Theme De Crabtree 02:16

4.

Road Of The Lonely Ones 03:38

5.

Loose Goose 02:21

6.

Dirtknock 02:14

7.

Hopprock 03:27

8.

Riddim Chant 01:58

9.

Sound Ancestors 02:50

10.

One For Quartabê / Right Now 02:42

11.

Hang Out (Phone Off) 02:15

12.

Two for 2 - For Dilla 02:51

13.

Latino Negro 03:36

14.

The New Normal 02:28

15.

Chino 01:57

16.

Duumbiyay 03:13

about

Music by Madlib. Edited, arranged and mastered by Kieran Hebden