Madlib's first YNQ album's halfway between instrumental hip hop and sullen, bubbling jazz. Five fictional members give Jackson room to lay down murky, hitched, off-center grooves. It's hornless, leaning on synth, bass and vibraphone ringing, never straying overly far from its central tones, never giving you any real hooks or choruses or signposts, the music never changing, but the listen becoming claustrophobic and labyrinthine, running through the Goblet of Fire maze aimlessly in superslow motion.
Interesting, but never altogether pleasant, and remarkably difficult to actually listen to all the way through 2.5/5
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