Madlib Invasion US Schallplatten & CDs

Review: If you like Madlib then you will like this - a new and exclusive 28-track collection of the legendary hip-hop icon's best collaborations. Featuring are the likes of A.G., Guilty Simpson, MED, Oh No and Strong Arm Steady, with Karriem Riggins appearing for a Supreme Team session. There is also a special track taken from the Jaylib-era that was meant to be on a second album which never ended up being released. To finish it off, plenty of Loop Digga instrumentals, as well as some textbook interludes and outerludes also help colour this one and make it such a vivid listen.

Review: The Madlib Invazion Music Library Series clocks up its eighth entry here and the honour is given to drummer Karriem Riggins who offers up To The Jungle. He is someone who can play the sticks with real conviction and shows that here across another superb album in this series. It really makes use of the chance given to him to stretch himself and create the sort of music he might not dare to otherwise. It has all been created with a view to be ing given one-stop clearance for use in mim and TV and plenty of this one surely will because it is so evocative.

Review: Madlib continues to bring things full circle with the series of library music albums on his label Madlib Invazion, inviting contemporary artists to lay down the kind of impeccable instrumentals that formed so much source material for the first wave of samplers and crate diggers in hip-hop and elsewhere. After entries from Dan Ubick, Dan Hastie and Terin Ector, the latest finds Los Yesterdays' Gabriel Rowland laying down 16 funk and soul-informed pieces which would lend themselves to TV and film use as much as someone getting fancy with an MPC. Don't wait until these become coveted treasure for dusty-fingered record hawks - grab those sublime grooves and get busy whether you want to make use of them or simply savour the flavour.

Review: These are two serious legends right here: Madlib the extraordinary beatmaker behind countless seminal albums and collabs and Guilty Simpson the man who has voiced just as many classic records of his own. This limited edition gold vinyl double album version of Before The Verdict: Madlib Medicine Show #1 is considered a prelude to this pair's collaborative album O.J. and has a mix of original cuts as well as remixes from Simpson's own solo debut album Ode to the Ghetto. It's as real and raw as rap gets and features two brief guest appearances from J Dilla and MED.

Review: Dan Ubick is best known as Connie Price, generally found playing with his band The Keystones. But here he's been invited to indulge in a different kind of pursuit by none other than Madly and Stones Throw driving force Egon. They started the Madlib Invazion Library Series to invite certain talented friends to indulge a particular sound in the particular mindset of library music and for Ubick that meant exploring the depth and breadth of something he calls canyon funk. The name is quite explanatory and here you get some heavy funk grooves laced through with Ubick's twanging guitar for a sound which splits the difference between country and funk and comes off sounding like the consummate library album in the process.

Review: Entry #7 in The Madlib Invazion Music Library Series features the collaborative work of composer, producer, and arranger Mario Luciano alongside vocalist Lauren Santi from Polyphonic Music Library. The collection explores a fusion of psychedelic jazz, experimental soul and cosmic fusion. Initiated by Madlib and Egon, this series provides a platform for their creative peers to explore diverse musical genres which is what happened here and then some with standouts like 'Expressions From The Ear' and 'A Piece For Reflection' showing the two different poles of sound that are explored.

Review: This is the second new entry into Madlib's recently launched Madlib Invazion Library Series. It comes from The Nesta Vaults and finds Jake Ferguson and Heliocentrics man Malcolm Catto offering up their own unique and instrumental take on cosmic funk and psychedelic jazz. The 11-track set is deeply mystic and mesmerising with ethnic melodies leads and plenty of trippy guitar lines over compelling rhythms. At times it's woozy and late length and at others its more experimental and dark in its careful exploration of the unknown. A creative collection that makes another fine entry in this young series.

Review: The Madlib Invazion Music Library Series was created by Madlib and Egon over the course of the Pandemic, and was a chance to give their creative friends the ability to stretch out and indulge in whatever type of music they wanted for release on the label. The music had to be great and able to be presented as a standalone album, just like the best 'Music Library' releases of the past, be they on labels like Italy's Sermi, Germany's Bruton, France's MP2000 and the UK's DeWolfe. And, like those albums, it had to work as easy, one-stop clearance for background cues in film and television production and, as producers have been indulging since the 1990s, for sampling. Joe Harrison's top-up to the series is just one of many, and brings a heated, undeniably infectious array of instrumentals to the table, all of which we're sure will be put to good use in the decades to come.