The Ot X-Tet - The Bridge To Total Freedom (2022)

The last time we asked mercurial Philly producer MALK if he had anything new for us to listen to, he casually informed us that he'd recorded an album that was "basically jazz". We were intrigued. Intrigued but not surprised, as nothing really surprises us with this kid. It only took one listen for us to decide that we had to put this out on Home Assembly.

As with his work with Hip Hop trio Mahatma X and his more electronic hued solo offerings, it's impossible to pin his sound down to any one particular genre. With THE OT X-TET he points his feverish, scattershot productions in a jazz direction, most notably with a respectful nod to Madlib's Yesterday's New Quintet project.

After spending a year in London, ostensibly to further his academic career, he immersed himself in the capital's burgeoning new jazz scene and The Bridge To Total Freedom was the result of fevered late night sessions, coalescing in a much more realised and nuanced set of tracks in comparison with his previous outings.

Yes, you can call it jazz but this is jazz MALK style. Retaining all the hallmarks of his skittish production style, the eleven tracks that make up the album seamlessly merge live drumming and instrumentation with programmed beats and samples that reference the many oddball memes that preoccupy this talented producer's febrile imagination. From the get go it swings and it grooves with spacey keys sketching the album's multifarious earworms.