Madlib - Beat Konducta Vol. 3-4: Beat Konducta in India [2LP Saffron Blend]

Madlib's Beat Konducta in India sends the Oxnard producer digging through Bollywood soundtracks, and Vols. 3-4 arrive here as a 2LP in the Saffron Blend edition, pressed on silver and saffron vinyl.

First released by Stones Throw in 2007, the two volumes continued the instrumental series that began with Movie Scenes, this time built almost entirely from Hindi film music and other Indian productions of the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s. It plays like an imaginary tour of Bombay cinema around 1975, with Madlib working the projector and cutting the reels to his own restless timing.

Thirty-four short pieces fly past, sitars, strings and dramatic vocal snatches flipped over dusty, head-nodding drums. "Enter...Hot Curry" raises the curtain with a flourish, "Sitar Ride" lives up to its name with a looping, hypnotic glide, and "Movie Finale" later became the backbone of "Auditorium" on Mos Def's The Ecstatic, featuring Slick Rick. Elsewhere the funk never lets up, even when the samples drift into lush orchestral territory.

For beat heads, it is one of the great crate-digging records of its era, a reminder that the best producers treat a sample library like a passport. The Saffron Blend colour, a nod to the album's spice-rack theme, makes it as good to look at as it is to hear.