Nicolette: "Let No One Live Rent-Free In Your Head" Talkin' Loud, 532 814-2 (62 mins) Dial-a-track code: 1201
For the Nicolette template, you have to go back to her 1992 Now Is Early album on the Shut Up And Dance label. While it took Massive Attack and Protection for the rest of the world to tune in and get hooked, there's little - aside from the voice - which will be familiar to Massive connoisseurs here as Nicolette takes the opportunity to test the elasticity of the far left field confines. Let No-One Live ... is a pop album from the wild side. It may contain some elementary drum & bass, hip-hop and abrasive techno rhythms but it's Nicolette's wonderfully off-kilter voice and scat lyrics which gel the collection into place. Tracks like We Never Know, No Government and Where Have All The Flowers Gone? are Ella Fitzgerald slides embellished with an experimental edge, while Nervous is a rough-and-tumble cascade into more metallic soundscapes. With collaborators such as Plaid, Roni Size and DJ Krust on hand, Nicolette's space-age opera is rarely short of ideas.
Alex Reece: "So Far" Fourth & Broadway, BRCD 621/524 265-2(51 mins) Dial-a-track code: 1311
The golden boy of the drum & bass scene, Alex Reece has never seemed at ease with the cult of pop star, preferring a day in the studio or at the pool table to endless promotional fun and games. A public spat with the extra large Goldie and a stylistic schism from the rest of the jungle community have further alienated Reece, making him the most isolated of the scene's protagonists. No surprise, then, that his mesmeric sci-fi future funk has more in common with Detroit techno than London's high-stepping big-up merchants.
Reece strips his tracks down to a bewilderingly simple melody to which some minimalist keyboards and vocals are added. When it works - as in the euphoric shudder of Feel The "Sunshine and the jazzy sheen of Jazzmaster - he creates something timeless and classic. But when he overplays his card (as he does more than once on So Far), the results are tiresome and flawed. It's with the closing UR, though, that Reece comes up with his Strings Of Life. Merging Eno's Music For Airports with Underground Resistance's lust for living large, it's a bit of a lush unfinished symphony.
Various Artists: "Metalheadz presents Platinum Breaks" Metalheadz/ffrr, 828 783 2 (2 CDs, 119 mins) Dial-a-track code: 1421
Reece's former mentor Goldie gathers the troops and compiles the sleeve notes for this collection of Metalheadz moments. The jungle label with the extra-large public profile, Pkitinitni Breaks will do for it what Logical Progression did for LTJ Bukem's Good Lokking stable. It's also the perfect way to get your hands on Metalheadz tracks seeing as many of the highly limited Metalheadz Vinyl releases never made it into Irish record shops in the first place. The Metalheadz roster reads like a Who's Who of Nineties' jungle. From Photek's exacting atmospherics to the shrill technoid rhythms of Wax Doctor's The Spectrum, Metalheadz cover both sides of the new jungle coin with style. The real applause is reserved for Doc Scott and Peshay, both of whom weave a series of extraordinary ideas into top-drawer breaks and beats.
Various Artists: "High In A Basement" Heavenly, 74321 386912 (76 mins) - Dial- a-track code: 1531
Of course, drum & bass is not the only British movement of note in 1996. House is rediscovering a sense of adventure via such labels as Nuphonic, Paper and U-Star and a concentration on warm, deep jazz-tinged beats instead of the all-too-familiar relentless terror-thump. This collection brings together some of the more classy releases to date from the ever-expanding world of nu-house. Faze Action's In The Trees is a widescreen epic with some deft orchestral touches and effects, while DiY's Rump Funk and the Idjut Boys' A Full Length push the boat out in spectacular fashion. While there are traces of Strictly Rhythm's slick style to be found throughout, these nuhouse groovers have designs and structures all of their own making.
