Sound Ancestors is arranged, edited, and mastered, by Four Tet.

The wait for Madlib and Four Tet‘s first official collaborative project is over. Sounds Ancestors has landed.

Clocking in at 16 tracks, the album is a proper showcase of the producer’s expansive crates, pulling from a broad set of source material including spiritual jazz, funk-fueled afro-beat, psyche rock, and slinky limited-run soul. The album was announced in mid-December with the release of the lead single, “Road of The Lonely Ones,” which stitches together a pair of songs by Philly soul outfit, The Ethics. And in the weeks since, two more singles, “Hopprock” and “Dirtknock,” have arrived.

The premise for Sound Ancestors is a simple one: Four Tet culls hundreds of beats and sketches sent to him by Madlib, editing and arranging them into a fluid solo-ish album from The Beat Konducta. The UK producer also mastered the album. Four Tet previously remixed a handful of tracks from Madvillainy, releasing a short EP of his edits via Stones Throw in 2005. In a profile on the project from The New York Times, Madlib announced Sound Ancestors was only the beginning of his 2021 slate, intending to release an album-per month on his Madlib Invazion imprint. Other projects have yet to be announced.

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