Driving Me Madlib Posted by independent j

The Bees - Chicken Payback (Madlib's Soul Distortion Vocal Mix) 10" - ?? - 2005 Sound Directions - The Horse from album The Funky Side of Life - Stones Throw - 2005 Madlib drives me nuts. First off, he's crazy prolific and I'm afflicted by the disease of completism. Second, a great deal of his releases come off as half-finished and not fully realized, which is probably partly due to his restless and widespread spirit but also explains the vast quanitity of stuff he is able to release. Just when I think I've excised the desire to track down all of his releases based on disappointments he unleashes something different from his other work and breathtakingly good like these two tracks. "The Horse" was the lead single from Madlib's most recent (I think...who can keep track) alias as a band. Big punchy drums and a horn group give a sound that is new for the loop-digga who has previously touched on just about everything else. The big funk sound has a great classic sound, and it is a little unclear what's Madlib's sampling work and what is the efforts of the live musicians who sat in on this record. The rest of the Funky Side Of Life album is spread between soul and funk over a wide range of styles for such a short work, and doesn't quite ever meet the high point of "The Horse." "Chicken Payback" presents even bigger drums in an absolute scorcher of a remix from the Mad one. The Bees are a punk-funk outfit from Liverpool. The vocals here are really just another percussive instrument as the lyrics are non-sensical, Old McDonald style countdown, so the song-writing skill of leaders/founds Aaron & Paul remains unknown but they've got the funk groove clearly defined. So just when I thought I was out Otis pulls me back in, and I'm certainly going to be picking up all of the animal titled heavy funk singles Madlib releases in the future.