- Trouble Knows Me is a cute little taster. A taste of a taster, really. The new six track joint by Madlib and Future Islands’ Sam Herring runs a song or two shy of a quarter hour and plays like the first part of mix-tape side A. It’s just enough to get your appetite whet but not enough to have you quenched.

The EP is a pretty even spread of samples and vocal, with the ubiquitous intro, outro and interlude bracketing a few exploratory raps. The lyrics on these tracks are fun enough, but they’ll never get confused with literature. Aside from a few blunt guillotine cuts, the sampling is fairly restrained throughout and blends reasonably well around the other elements. The instrumental beats are broken enough to be intriguing and make a great compliment to Herring’s sandlot vocal delivery, but they also sound a little like something RZA and Dilla left in their last share-house.

September’s 12” release is planned to have a B-side of pure instrumentals, which should be a nice item for collectors and scratchers alike. Maybe they were both too busy to write a full compliment of songs, it would have been interesting to see how Herring and Madlib sprawl out over a full length release. As it stands, the EP feels like a short walk to nowhere, the trip to the room for the thing you forgot.

If you’ve got a spare thirteen minutes in your pocket, Trouble Knows Me is a nice way to spend them without getting in too deep, like taking morning tea in an apartment overlooking the ghetto.

- Nic Addenbrooke.