New studio album from Madlib's Yesterday's New Quintet project, this time featuring a crew of live musicians who mostly seem culled from the Now Again roster & Connie Price group. With Madlib standing aside to do the directing rather than playing all the instruments himself, the sound is much tighter than past YNQ releases, but still retains his left brain, loping sense of musical structure. So fans will slide right in, and those of you who may have been turned off by previous meanderings might want to give the YNQ concept a new shot. About half the material are original Otis & friends compositions, while the other half cover classic breaks like Billy Brooks' "Forty Days(1)," Oliver Sain's "On The Hill(2)," and David Axelrod's "A Divine Image(3)."

reviewed by the mgmnt