Mad Doctor X

The Doctor seems to be stuck in a bit of a time warp these days. Mad Doctor X emerged from the dated, yet often brilliant, beats of the London Funk Allstars in the earlier days of Ninja Tune. As the label progressed and furthered themselves from their wrongful "trip-hop” nametag, the London Funk Allstars were lost in the shuffle and this began the creating of Mad Doctor X. With a couple records already under his new creation, Mad Doctor X is not new to the scene, which is what sort of makes Chillonometry a bit of a disappointing record. There are still a lot of similarities to the London Funk Allstars, with gigantic, pulsating hip-hop beats and crazy funk ramblings, and the majority of it sounds quite grand and definitely doesn’t fail at making you snap your neck or tap your foot. But with so much going on in the instrumental hip-hop scene, you have to wonder why Mad Doctor X is still producing tracks that are similar to some of his mid-’90s releases. Chillonometry serves up some great moments, like the beautifully haunting vibes of "Queasy Listening” and "Melting of the Minds,” but there’s not enough of this brilliance on the record to keep it afloat. Wackness sets in with cheesy R&B love ballad "Show Me” and all things come undone with the ridiculously thugged-out "E.I.E.,” which ends the record on a very low note. Chillonometry certainly has its moments, but not nearly enough of them to be the kind of advanced record that Mad Doctor X should be creating at this point in his career.