9 Lazy 9

Welcome to the soundtrack to an imaginary '70s spy movie, conceived by a bunch of British rare-groove DJs. It's a zany, addictive mixture of futuristic lounge Funk, psychedelic space jazz, slinky bedroom Fusion, fractured amalgams of Bebop, Mambo, Cocktail, Soul Jazz, North African traditional music, and whatever else happens to float through the time-warped brain cells of these shamelessly retro studio whiz kids. Wah-wah keyboards, vibraphones, brassy horn sections, slinky saxophone solos, and splashes of jazz guitar float through shuffling breakbeats spiced up with digitally altered samples. Some tracks bring together Afro-Cuban and Moroccan sounds, heavy on the hand percussion, blazing trumpet licks, and the shrill sounds of the raita, a North African reed instrument. Others make shameless use of cocktail piano riffs in the service of moody Ambient Breakbeat explorations chock-full of turntable scratches and subliminal, unsettling vocal samples.