Getting your groove on

dDub's album Awake at Dawn is full of tracks with perfect hooks to sing along to, while clutching a beer in each hand.

Someone needs their ass kicked.

Local skanksters dDub assemble a digital party piece that could help snap the nation out of it's Prozac-reggae slumber, yet for some reason it isn't offered up until summer is strapping on its last legs.

Awake at Dawn reflects an rockstepping set that's grown up over umpteen sweaty gigs in umpteen sweatier bars. Derek Browne is a master of singalong phrasing - tracks like single Give Up Your Love carry perfect hooks to bellow out while clutching a beer in one hand and, well, why not, a beer in the other as well? These guys could become a ganja take on the Exponents if they could shake off the current dreadlocked fad for seven-minute epics. I blame the flood of jazzsters taking up Jamaican folk. Any guesses on how many recent music skool grads have swapped their berets for tea cosies?

But if they sometimes veer dangerously close to inventing prog ska, they're doing it in fine style. The production shines, Matt Shanks' bass boasts more monster than King Kong, and the arrangements carry signs of a fine-tooth comb. Purists may object, but there'll be another Studio One comp on it's way to keep them happy.

Matching them in the sweat stakes is Breakestra, a major player among global funk revivalists including our very own Open Souls - buy their 7in single Turn It Up now if not sooner.

Breakestra's Hit the Floor is the sound of a cycle restarting: Hip-hop fleeced old funk for an audience who became curious about those original tracks which in turn drove the rise of new funk that sounds, ummm, old. For their part, Breakestra began by playing perfect collages of those classic samples, best exemplified on their Live Mix Part 2 from 2001, but here they reveal a rambunctious set of originals ranging from the full-throttle, JB's-styled Got to Let Me Know to the rare groove of See Sawing. You could probably accuse Miles Tackett (son of Little Feat's Freddie Tackett) and co of rehashing old ground, but then so do Pavarotti and the Rolling Stones, and these guys are a hell of a lot more fun.

You'd probably never accuse Jazzanova of being a funarama, but the Aryan electronica boffins remain bloody good at their business. Their tracks don't so much play out as evolve - see, intelligent design and evolution can co-exist. If you want obvious, grand gestures, buy Gatecrasher.

The Remixes: 2002-2005 requires no explanation, it's 10 high-tech, high-groove reinterpretations of other people's work with local chests swelling over the inclusion of Fat Freddys' Flashback, a testament to how their work has been accepted by the old world.

Speaking of remixes, there's no shortage of labels trying to capture new audiences with bingbong versions of their old chestnuts - thank you not very much Blue Note and Verve. Ubiquity's Rewind series at least goes the whole hog and assembles a mixed bag of ground-up makeovers. Not everything avoids filler status, but the hits might just leave your knees wobbling. For starters, check out Sharon Jones' blackifying This Land is Your Land, Willis' astounding, acoustic stripmining on Cameo's classic Word Up, and The Rebirth's reinvention of Evil Vibrations.

After almost a decade of tinkering on the sidelines, Coldcut can finally be removed from the "where are they now?" file. For those who've forgotten, these guys almost set the bar for remixing with their epic version of Eric B & Rakim's Paid In Full while also enjoying the view from the top of the charts with Yazz and the Plastic Population's cover of The Only Way Is Up. Sound Mirror is their first album since 1997's Let Us Play and presents a grab-bag of styles from electro clash to, ahem, hip-hop poetry, with a liberal dusting of their patented 90s electro. It's guest star a-gogo with Roots Manuva adding plenty of butter to his toast on True Skool and Robert Owens' soulful croon on Walk A Mile offering an immediate cure to any deep house addictions. Welcome back fullas. 


dDub: Awake At Dawn
Herald rating: * * * *
Label:Vunderchick Records
Good time guys having a damn good time.


Breakestra: Hit The Floor
Herald rating: * * * *
Label: Ubiquity
Nothing you ain't heard before, but it's phat as hell.


Jazzanova: The Remixes 2002-2005
Herald rating: * * * *
Label: Sonar Kollektiv
The science that took man to the moon and back again.


Various: Rewind 4
Herald rating * * *
Label: Ubiquity
Old songs covered, but not smothered.


Coldcut: Sound Mirrors
Herald rating:* * * *
Label: Ninja Tune
They're back to doing what they do so well.