Album: Galactic, Ya-Ka-May (Anti)

"Not your father's New Orleans record!" proclaims the cover sticker on Galactic's Ya-Ka-May, though methinks they protest too much: with guest appearances from Allen Toussaint, Irma Thomas and Rebirth Brass Band, there's more than a hint of the Crescent City's old-school R&B here.

But they're featured alongside young, lesser-known proponents of the city's "bounce" scene, its characteristically rhythmic contribution to hip-hop, such as Cheeky Blakk, Katey Redd and Sissy Nobby. The city's Mardi Gras Indian heritage is represented by Big Chief Bo Dollis of The Wild Magnolias, chanting over the bubbling clavinet of "Wild Man", while "Bacchus" finds Toussaint offering a secular sermon over a spartan groove studded with horn stabs. Rebirth Brass Band and trombonists Corey Henry and Trombone Shorty bring rumbustious jump-blues jazz to New Orleans' rumba-rock twitch on "Boe Money" and "Cineramascope"; and the city's bayou swamp-funk sound has a strong presence in the murky grooves of "Dark Water" and especially "Liquor Pang", on which the Morning 40 Federation drawl ill-advisedly about having their "finger on the trigger, drinking liquor in the fast lane". Not even Cheeky Blakk's expletive-spattered rap over the irresistible bounce twitch of "Do It Again" is quite that irresponsible.

Download this Boe Money; Liquor Pang; Do It Again; Bacchus