Though his countless imitators have softened the novelty, it's still hard to overestimate the progressive promise of Timbaland, who has spent the past five years storming the hip-hop and R&B charts with some of the most mind-bendingly experimental pop music this side of Radiohead. In the past year alone, his production work—heard on Missy Elliott's "Get Ur Freak On," Aaliyah's "We Need A Resolution," and Jay-Z's "Hola' Hovito," to name just a few tracks—has continued to redefine the notion of sonic possibility, incorporating tabla-tapped negative space, snaky violin lines, and shards of noise into stutter-stop beats that get funkier as their debt to minimalism becomes more pronounced. The artists on Electric Ladyland: Clickhop Version 1.0 are more likely to be at home studying liner notes than hollering along to the newest R&B banger, but their devotion to Timbaland couldn't be more apparent. The latest double-disc offering from Mille Plateaux, the label responsible for two genre-defining Clicks + Cuts compilations, Electric Ladyland marks an interesting meeting between minimal techno and the more explicitly rewarding swing of breakbeat-oriented rap and soul. The best tracks announce their pop ambitions loud and clear: Finnish phenom Vladislav Delay (as AGF/DLAY) and MRI turn in vocal numbers whose soaring songfulness makes their clipped micro-edits recede even further from view than usual, until they sound like an R&B take on Björk's Vespertine. On "Mr. Blister Is Connected To My Fingers," Safety Scissors dips a Timbaland-like march into deep vats of dub grease, smearing his pointillist clicks into ghostly suggestions of funk. The album's more overt hip-hop moments run from inventive science-fiction relics (High Priest From The Anti-Pop Consortium's "Soma 1128") to forced fusions like Graphit.E's "Five-11-West," which sticks to formula with "where my niggas at?" sentiment. It's a shame that it takes a concept album to bring seemingly disparate worlds together, but at its gerrymandering best, Electric Ladyland illustrates how borders mean the most when they're ignored altogether.