In 2003, Madlib was granted the rare privilege of access to their entire catalogue for a collection of remixes to be re-released on Blue Note Record’s catalogue. Each song is named after the track it remixes, and only one includes a rapped verse (Please Set Me At Ease, featuring Medaphoar). What results from this focus on the original tracks is a collection of hip hop beats that morphs into something entirely different — and completely unexpected.

The jazz Madlib is remixing, like all great jazz, lied on the fringe’s of music’s sensibilities (at one point in time). And while Madlib wasn’t the first star to gain access to Madlib’s catalogue, he is the one who seems most fit for the project. His hip hop production work and his ability as an emcee isn’t far removed from Blue Note’s jazziest origins: it’s eccentric, unpredictable, and far from the status quo of commercialism in the genre.

That makes for a unique pairing and an interesting listen — one that is at once superficial and intricate, in the sense that it makes for great background music and also rewards deeper listening.

Throughout the interludes in the album, Madlib takes the time to explain the story behind Blue Note and its success — but you also get the impression that he’s talking, at least metaphorically, about his dreams for his own career as a producer. Talking about Alfred Lion, he explains that Alfred never made a mistake, and that out of the over–1,000 records that Alfred produced, 950 of them are classics. There’s a sense that Madlib hopes the same for himself.

Madlib is also making a statement about hip hop, as a genre: by taking jazz classics from the world’s most pre-eminent jazz label and mixing them for a new future, he’s asserting that hip hop — in form and texture — is as varied and unique as jazz was, and perhaps is its natural successor. Shades Of Blue makes a strong case.

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The Mercury-nominated band, now signed to the legendary Blue Note Records, is known for its experimentation with acoustic instruments and electronic noises. Their playfulness with textures is arguably what got them that Mercury Prize notation in 2014, but on Man Made Object they take it to the next level.

The statement from Blue Note explains that the band wrote many of the songs with electronic instrumentation first, and then found ways to transpose it to piano, acoustic bass, and a standard drum kit.

What they arrive at is something that Blue Note is pegging as “acoustic electronica”, but honestly, it’s not something you’ll recognize as such from the get-go. Although GoGo Penguin doesn’t play any jazz bebop the way that traditional fans will expect, this still has all the hallmarks jazz fans will recognize: unpredictable time signature changes, unusual chord progressions (and unusual chords, period), all played to an upbeat and constantly-moving groove.

It’s the groove that appears to fascinate GoGo Penguin. Although Man Made Object doesn’t have standout tracks in the traditional sense (and I doubt the trio is aiming for traditional senses to begin with), the album is at its best when the band experiments with the groove. Not unlike the best electronic music, they’ll unexpectedly change the groove and break with the previous time signature to drop the piano from a peak into a momentous, pounding rhythm — like they do by the tail end of Unspeakable World.

That makes it sound like electronic music, but I would never classify it that way — although their interest in the textures of it is quite clear. In the end, though, experimental jazz has always been about textures. Exploring those through electronic music is interesting, and GoGo Penguin have carved a unique identity through that exploration, but ultimately it’s still jazz music. Jazz music has always encouraged exploring. It’s just that GoGo Penguin have found a different way of doing it.

And it sounds darn great.

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