Common: Like Water For Chocolate (MCA)
In hip-hop, as in all genres, there are best kept secrets and Common seems to be one of these. Previous albums, like the erudite One Day It'll All Make Sense, saw Rashid Lynn far removed from the caricatured and cartoon images we associate with the sound, emoting instead about real issues and lives. This album, named after Alfonso Arau's film, continues the thread. Produced in cahoots with various Roots and D'Angelo, it jumps from Afro-flecked tributes to Fela Kuti on Time Travellin to gorgeously funky Tribe Called Quest recalls on Sixth Sense with Common's jazzy purr at the heart of this organic swell. Hip-hop for those who want substance as well as style.
- Jim Carroll
Various: The Ground Floor (Frontend Synthetics)
One step up from the underground, The Ground Floor is music to make you stop and think of just what might be to come. A collection of Dublin-based producers prove that the capital's techno fixation goes beyond three or four packed clubs on a Tuesday night, with this set of mesmerising, bright and innovative sounds. From the gorgeous shimmy of John Braine's La Belle Shyanne and the epic tug of Dunk's Eau de Nollag, to the beautiful sweep of Soft Swing from experienced hands Decal; The Ground Floor is bewitchingly the right sound in the right place at the right time. A soundtrack by and for a generation who know that it's not what you do but how you do it.
- Jim Carroll