Madlib announced today that the upcoming album Sound Ancestors, co-created by Four Tet, will arrive in January of 2021. Alongside the announcement, the American rapper and English musician released the first single off the record Road of the Lonely Ones. The track debuted in the UK today on Mary Anne Hobbs’ BBC Radio 6 morning show.
The forthcoming new record is comprised of Madlib’s music and vocals, with the arrangements completed by Four Tet, acting as editor, arranger and master on the album. The two artists have been working on Sound Ancestors for many years and only completed the collaboration a few months ago according to a statement on Four Tet’s social media.
When regarding the upcoming album with Madlib, Four Tet stated that the American DJ/Rapper 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.
When discussing how Four Tet and Madlib got on board for such an innovative and creative project, he stated that he put this concept to [Madlib] 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.
— Madlib (@madlib) December 14, 2020
Both artists have released many collaborations in 2020, even as recently as last Friday when Four Tet announced the streaming release of the tracks Her Revolution and His Rope, a collaborative record made with Burial and Thom Yorke. Four Tet’s most recent album Sixteen Oceans featured many musical partnerships including Caribou and Tame Impala.
Madlib collaborated with Freddie Gibbs in 2019 on the project Bandana and more recently the rapper helped produce the artist Noname’s Song 33, and went on to work in partnership with Mr. Muthafuckin’ eXquire and Oh No. This collaboration with Four Tet is only the latest in the long line of Madlib’s inclination towards A-List team efforts.
The newly-announced collaborative album Sound Ancestors will be released on an undetermined date sometime in January next year and is not currently available to pre-order at this time. The single Road of the Lonely Ones is currently available on all streaming platforms.
