Santa came a bit earlier this year and definitely with a huge surprise: a brand new single called ‘Road Of The Lonely Ones‘ from the forthcoming collaborative album of American beat making legend, Madlib, edited, arranged and mastered by Kieran Hebden, better known as Four Tet.
The new song was premiered on Mary Anne Hobbs’ show on BBC 6 Music, included in Bonobo’s guest mix. ‘Roads Of The Lonely Ones‘ is exactly what you expect from the two masterminds. A delicately chosen sample – The Ethics, courtesy Jamie Records and the exquisite drums courtesy Idris Muhammad a.k.a. J-Zone – smooth editing, resulting in a mellow beat which perfectly blends with the poignant vocals, leaving the listener in a bittersweet harmony. Four Tet revealed that the album, called ‘Sound Ancestors‘, will come out via Madlib’s and Eothen Alapatt, a.k.a Egon‘s imprint Madlib Invazion in January. It will be the hip-hop icon’s new instrumental solo album he worked on with Four Tet for the last couple of years. Kieran shared the project’s brief background story on his socials, saying:
“A few months ago I completed work on an album with my friend Madlib that we’d been making for the last few years. 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.“
It is safe to say that they filled the void of cancelled gigs with extra studio time. Besides his latest album ‘Sixteen Oceans’ in March, and a four-track EP under his Windings alias ⣎⡇ꉺლ༽இ•̛)ྀ◞ ༎ຶ ༽ৣৢ؞ৢ؞ؖ ꉺლ, Four Tet released two joint tracks with Burial and Thom Yorke in December, ‘Her Revolution‘ and ‘His Rope‘. Earlier this year, Madlib dropped a collaborative album under the moniker The Professionals, a hip-hop duo with his brother, rapper Oh No; released the instrumental album of his critically acclaimed album with Freddie Gibbs ‘Bandana‘, as well as ‘Pardon My French’, a spritiual jazz album with drummer Karriem Riggins.
You don’t want to miss out on this release, available now on all streaming platforms.
Image Credit: Eothen Alapatt via Instagram
