The title says it all — The Further Adventures of Lord Quas
finds producer Madlib back in the basement lab for another go-round
with his helium-voiced alter ego, Quasimoto. If the album cover is to
be believed, Lord Quas is something like a cross between Alf and
Winnie the Pooh, but with a nasty streak ("I run around town scalpin'
old folks with butter knifes") and a serious weakness for weed.
Of course, all of this was established on Quasimoto's debut, The
Unseen. But like any sequel worth its salt, Further
Adventures lives by the philosophy, "The same, only more so" —
twice the skits (the album is essentially one long skit; Prince Paul
has a lot to answer for), twice the Cheech and Chong routine, twice
the Melvin Van Peebles. (A third Quas record seems somewhat unlikely,
if only because there can't possibly be that many Van Peebles songs
left for Madlib to sample.) There's also twice the doo-doo jokes
("Brother blew my bathroom up tryin' to get relief/ He didn't know I
run my toilet paper on poison ivy leaf"), a dismaying development, but
maybe not surprising from a guy who visually quotes Zappa on his
album cover.
If only it had twice the funk, then we might be getting somewhere.
But although the Loop Digga comes up with a sick one every now and
then — the choppy flutes and cop-show theme music of "Raw Deal," the
smooth soul of "Bus Ride" — you can barely get your head-nod on
before Van Peebles' Reverend Willie is in your face asking for spare
change. Madlib's constant digressions, interruptions and little sonic
jokes may make for an immersive listening experience, but The
Further Adventures of Lord Quas demands pretty strict attention,
and what it gives back in return is only sporadically satisfying. The
album struggles under layers of fuzz and static that seemed
forgivable on The Unseen, which was reportedly recorded for
fun and not originally intended for release. On Further
Adventures, the aggressive lo-fi just seems to keep a beat like
"Fatbacks" or "1994" from hitting as hard as it should.
The biggest exception is "Closer," a new collaboration with MF Doom,
Madlib's partner on last year's brilliant Madvillainy. (In a
way, this latest album would be a lot better off if Madvillainy never existed — it oozes originality in a way that makes
Further Adventures sound like Madlib running in place.) Over a
psych-rock sample that would fit right in on Edan's Beauty and the
Beat, MF Doom proposes that he's "part of a new race/ Chrome
face/ 24-7 stay screwface/ Play home base" before passing the mic to
Quas. It's one of the only tracks on the album that Madlib allows to
feel like a finished song; instead of stopping things cold, an
outburst from hipster comedian Lord Buckley just serves as a quick
jolt to the senses before the beat kicks back in. "The Clown"
features probably the best verse from Quas, though, including a line
that bizarrely seems to reference an old Connect Four television ad:
"Contact/ Pretty sneaky, sis/ She takes photos with the twins/ Pretty
freaky, sis."
But for every highlight, the album has more than its share of stop-start, musically
jarring tracks like "Another Demo Tape," or rote Van
Peebles remakes like "Hydrant Game." "Raw Addict Pt. 2" sounds well-
worn even when you're hearing it for the first time — wow, Madlib
likes to buy a lot of records? Who knew? Still, "Players of the Game"
finds some fresh material when 'Lib drops the mask for a minute and
lays out his view of the rap chessboard: "Goin' wood in the hood or
gettin' Grammys/ Comin' like Neptunes or Prince Jammy/ Bein'
yourself, sounding the same/ It's all part of the game." One thing
Madlib can't be accused of is not being himself, and although that
leads into some self-indulgent corners on The Further Adventures
of Lord Quas, the game would be a lot duller without him.
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