Album: Fujiya & Miyagi

Punters tempted to buy the Faithless album might be better advised to take a flier and invest in this excellent album by Fujiya & Miyagi, the nom de disque of guitarist/singer David Best, keyboardist/programmer Steve Lewis, and bassist Matt Hainsby - respectively Miyagi, Fujiya and Ampersand - whose grooves are both more exploratory and enjoyable. There's a pronounced Krautrock influence on their grooves, especially "Conductor 71", whose sleek trancedelic passage recalls the methodical, layered work of Michael Rother, and "Ankle Injuries" and "Cassettesingle", both of which emulate the hypnotic, throbbing motorik of Rother's old band Neu!; while elsewhere the likes of "Collarbone" and "Sucker Punch" adopt a more funky, loping manner that's equally infectious. Lyrically, they rely on incongruity and disjunction, with isolated lines like "you're off your bleeding rocker", "I look through transparent things and I feel OK" and "like pixelated scraps of jazz-mags in your head" having a similarly piquant flavour to the found-phrase montages of Underworld.

DOWNLOAD THIS: 'Ankle Injuries', 'Cassettesingle', 'Conductor 71', 'Photocopier', 'Collarbone'