Various Roots Techniques (Pressure Sounds/Brilliant)
Chemical Brothers Surrender (Astralwerks/Virgin)
Jamiroquai Synkronized (Columbia/Sony)
Luscious Jackson Electric Honey (Capitol/EMI) Down to a trio, the LJ ladies nonetheless deliver a stronger follow-up to Fever In Fever Out and its Cottonelle production by Daniel Lanois. Electric Honey is a more confident, comfortable remake of Natural Ingredients' sultry, streetwise bubblegum. That said, the album has LJ's usual flaws--silly lyrics, flat rockism, a refusal to challenge themselves vocally (although Jill Cunniff's apparently taking opera lessons) and some clumsy grooves, inexcusable on Debby Harry's cameo track ("Fantastic Fabulous"). Still, it has its moments, like the Cream-thiefin' cosmophonica of "Space Diva," and there's simply no getting past LJ's maximum womanicity. Goddamn. 7.5/10 (Rupert Bottenberg)
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This here is a testament to the talented gifts of one Winston Riley, who was responsible for many an anthem released on the Techniques label throughout the '60s, '70s and '80s. In an effort to stay true to 7" style, this comp takes songs like "Love Is the Light" by Horace Andy and puts them alongside their instrumental version as well as different songs sung on the exact same riddim. All sort of true Jamaican stars appear here, like Winston and Ansel, the Interns, I Roy, and the important contributions of the Techniques All Stars, the session band playing on many of these tracks. Pressure Sounds does it again. 8.5/10 (Scott C)
Don't be expecting any big beat. This time around Tom and Ed have enlisted the aid of a few friends, like Noel Gallagher, Missy Elliot and Bernard Sumner, and decided to try their hand at techno-pop. The result: thumbs up. Surrender could very well be the soundtrack to the film about your life, full of emotional highs and lows. The tunes range from upbeat trance bits to opium-laced ballads inspired by psychedelic rock. Very Velvet Underground... 8/10 (Krista)
For all the Jay K fans who've been assuming that they'd see this CD as disc of the week, I'm going to have to disappoint you, I'm afraid. Not that this isn't the regular high-end mélange of '90s disco and funk-ballads, but it feels to me like Jay may have gotten a little lazy and formulaic. He's very good at what he does and has the luxury of having some of the U.K.'s best musicians to back him up, but if you're like me and lost your mind when Emergency on Planet Earth came out, then you're probably expecting a bit more from the man of many hats these days. Synkronized is quality Jamiroquai, but it's not their best. 7.5/10 (Scott C)