I tried an experiment with this album. An experiment that I really ought not have been an exception, but rather the rule. I tried to not listen to any tracks off the album BEFORE it released. That means not downloading any tracks before hand, not looking for special unreleased cuts, not looking for special leaked bootlegs or mixes… none of that.

First off, it’s dope. Then secondly, it’s still dope.

The Further Adventures of Lord Quas follows Madlib/Quasimoto’s bizarre world of blunts, weed, jazz cats, rap cats, demo tapes, crate diggin’ and DITC (that’s diggin’ in those cakes). The tracks were characteristically short (for Madlib anyway) the beats were twisted and groovy, heavy with rare and obscure samples, often head noddingly good, and on occasion, sublime.

On first listen the album feels fragmented and confused. And after at least a few days of constant rotation, I still felt unsure about how well the format worked. So I tried a second experiment; I made a playlist of the first Quasimoto LP, “The Unseen” and the new one together so one album would flow into the other.

And then everything became clear.

All the foibles, the inconsistencies and sheer weirdness of the new LP, were all the things that I came to love about the first album, that now 5 years on, make it one of the best, most original hip hop albums of all time.

The highlights for me are “1994″ for it’s sneaky, ‘where dat come from’ guitar riff, “Rappcats Pt.3″ just for managing to fit that many shout outs into one song, and “Life Is…” for being so close to being really annoying but still managing to be a banger.

Stonesthrow don’t directly sell their records so get them here.