Album: Fink <!-- none onestar twostar threestar fourstar fivestar -->

Biscuits for Breakfast, NINJA TUNE

The largely acoustic Biscuits for Breakfast is probably the least typical release in the entire Ninja Tune catalogue, a surprise until you learn that Fink once laboured at the same synths, beats and scratches coalface for which the label is best known. With a weather eye on changing musical fashions, he's done a nifty volte-face to present himself as a funky folk-blues singer in the mould of Jeb Loy Nichols or G Love. The opener (and debut single) "Pretty Little Thing" is typical of Fink's style: a sparse, stripped-down funk groove of acoustic guitar, rimshots and an intermittent tremor of organ behind his languid, bluesy vocal; it's warm and welcoming without placing too many demands on the listener. Elsewhere, the occasional curlicue of slide guitar adds subtle detail to a cover of Alison Moyet's "All Cried Out", and a restrained ripple of piano underscores "Biscuits", Fink's account of the brain-numbing drudgery of his time as an office tea-boy. There's an understated charm about the album which recalls Seventies predecessors such as John Martyn and J J Cale: while Fink's not in the same virtuoso class as a guitarist, there's a steady, calm centre to his work that echoes their sultry, laidback manner.

DOWNLOAD THIS: 'Pretty Little Thing', 'Hush Now', 'You Gotta Choose'