Madlib Announces New Album With Four Tet, Shares Song: Listen

On Sunday, Four Tet revealed that an album he’s been making with Madlib over the last few years will arrive soon. Sound Ancestors is out in January via Madlib Invasion. The first track “Road of the Lonely Ones” debuted this morning on Mary Anne Hobbs’ BBC Radio 6 show. Listen to it via the BBC’s playback feature (the chat with Four Tet starts around 1:09:05), or via streaming services below. Four Tet described the album’s creation on Instagram:

“He is always making loads of music in all sorts of styles and I was listening to some of his new beats and studio sessions when I had the idea that it would be great to hear some of these ideas made into a Madlib solo album. Not made into beats for vocalists to use but instead arranged into tracks that could all flow together in an album designed to be listened to start to finish. I put this concept to him when we were hanging out eating some nice food one day and we decided to work on this together with him sending me tracks, loops, ideas and experiments that I would arrange, edit, manipulate and combine. I was sent hundreds of pieces of music over a couple of years stretch and during that time I put together this album with all the parts that fitted with my vision.”

Following last year’s Freddie Gibbs collaboration Bandana, Madlib produced Noname’s “Song 33,” revived his project Jahari Massamba Unit, and released collaborations with Mr. Muthafuckin’ eXquire and Oh No.

On Friday, Four Tet released two new songs made in collaboration with Burial and Thom Yorke. Those followed a busy year from Kieran Hebden, who released the album Sixteen Oceans and remixed songs by Tame Impala, Caribou, and Krust.

Read Pitchfork’s feature “Don’t Call Madlib, He’ll Call You.”