Junior Rafael - Darkroom Tracks

If the promo material is to be believed, this was recorded in 1991 and perhaps explains why it sounds so dated. The titles differ, but the sound doesn't: nothing insists you listen to it more than once. The closest this disc has to a stand-out track is Pump It: Milk It and even that's only because it's track one. To say it sets the agenda for what follows is fact, not praise. While some discs reveal further depths through repeated listens, Darkroom Tracks sounds tinnier and even more of a one-note wonder – where there should be deep, rolling bass grooves to lose oneself in, there are instead only little chocolate-y ditches. [Jonathan Robert Muirhead]