Bonobo - Nightlife

Nightlife, featuring singer Bajka (who has featured on labels like Compost and Jazzman) is an absolute delight: a tight, subtly infectious bossa nova beat and gently rising strings underscoring her voice, all demerara sweetness with a slight hint of Nina Simone. Bonobo is in a similar class to Matthew Herbert, but Nightlife is on a Latin tip all of his own. Recurring starts out on more familiar Ninja Tune territory as a melancholy broken beat number, before unfolding via slide guitar into an almost balearic finish. Fink provides guest vocals for If You Stayed Over, sounding oddly like Damon Albarn in early Blur. Endearingly detached, it is the least immediate of the three tunes, but creeps into the ear slowly over repeated listens. Utterly fabulous. [Bram Gieben]