Quasimoto

A full five years after the landmark The Unseen, producer/MC/chronic chameleon Madlib once more huffs helium and becomes the high-pitched hooligan Quasimoto. But times have changed and so has 'Lib, because where The Unseen was a mind-warping fusion of space-age samples and hyperspeed rhyming, The Further Adventures of Lord Quas is a rambling, weed-whacked catastrophe. With each new outing, Madlib seems to have a harder and harder time staying on message, but while that severe attention deficit proved charming on last year's collaboration with MF Doom, Madvillainy, here it's just distracting. Madlib moves aimlessly from one sample to the next, exiting songs after a single verse and clogging up space with oddball vocal snatches from drug films and children's records that kill time and clothesline the momentum. "Bus Ride" opens coolly with a slow-burn funk 45, but then collapses because of an intruding cartoon crackhead. And the bhangra backdrop to "Maingirl" is buried beneath layers of walkie-talkie static. These dalliances are especially frustrating because Madlib is a staggeringly gifted producer with a scholar's command of jazz, soul and funk. On Further, his restlessness gets the better of him.