June 5, 1999

Vertigo

Midsummer. Saturday afternoon. You and your buddies park up your runabout old bangers in the middle of the big city and you lay back on the windscreen....

8 / 10 /img/GrooveArmadaVertigo1099.jpg Midsummer. Saturday afternoon. You and your buddies park up your runabout old bangers in the middle of the big city and you lay back on the windscreen. You can just about stand the heat on your shoulders while the car stereo pumps out the music. And the music in question simply has to be Groove Armada.

It should come as a bit of a surprise, therefore, to learn that GA - aka Andy Cato and Tom Findlay - recorded the sublimely classic nu-funk sounds of 'Vertigo' in a remote cottage in the Lake District. It's an album that meanders through modern dance genres (utilising jazz, hip-hop, soul, house) with its head in the clouds, while golden oldie tunes are sampled at will and guest vocalists drop in for the odd embellishment. Such carefree logic comes to its zenith on the beatific lilt of 'At The River' where a sensual female vocal repeats the couplet: "If you're fond of sand dunes and salty air/Quaint little feelings just here and there" over the coolest of acid easy-listening breaks and mellow trumpet balm.

In the world of electronica, about as organically sublime as it gets.