Madlib is a frighteningly prolific producer, releasing multiple projects per year under a variety of aliases. One could devote significant time and resources just to collecting Madlib-related records. However, setting aside his other monikers, and his beat tape-style “Konducta” series, he has relatively few composed instrumental albums under his own name. His first, Shades of Blue, was made entirely of samples sourced from Blue Note jazz records. His more recent effort, Sound Ancestors, pulls from his legendarily vast and ever-growing record collection for a full but not overstuffed album, a complete thought. Sound Ancestors was overseen by Kieran Hebden aka Four Tet, a fellow producer, and his role seems to have been to help edit this project, both in a sense of selecting tracks, but also in a style reminiscent of legendary jazz producer Bob Thiele, of splicing bits of Madlib’s ideas into cohesive statements. The resulting album is moody and engaging, capped off by the gorgeous “Road of the Lonely Ones,” a rare kind of instrumental hip-hop song that is at once propulsive and emotionally resonant.

– Nate LeBlanc