Alfredo Review

Ten tracks, thirty five minutes, one producer, and the discipline is the achievement. The beats are gorgeous and restrained, obscure soundtrack and soul flips left largely intact, drums that stay out of the way, and a mood that holds from the first bar to the last. Against that, the writing is his most measured. 1985 is a mission statement delivered almost conversationally. Scottie Beam is the centrepiece, a verse about state violence that arrives without a raised voice and lands far harder for it, followed by a guest turn that matches it.

Frank Lucas and Something to Rap About are the loosest and best humoured things here. There is no filler because there is no room for any. If the Madlib records are the ambitious ones, this is the well made one, the album where everything he does well is present at once and nothing overstays its welcome. It is the record to hand somebody who has never heard him.