David Holmes: ... presents The Free Association

By RUSSELL BAILLIE

(Herald rating: * * * *)

Talking of the Big Day Out, it's perhaps surprising that Belfast DJ David Holmes has joined the bill, considering his focus of late - since his cut-above early solo albums - has been as an in-demand soundtrack producer for Hollywood films.

But he's also had to put together the Free Association, a live band of sorts which combines the airy soul-jazz voice of Petra Jean Phillipson, the askew, syntax-warping raps of Sean Reveron and Charles Fleischer over Holmes' uneasy beats and brassy, jazz-slanted arrangements.

The result is a vibrant affair, a musically sophisticated ensemble hip-hop album which can remind at times of the Massive Attack/Tricky musical axis during its darker moods.

But it also seems to have Holmes trawling his way through the American South with tracks like the tuba-powered Whistlin' Down the Wind, the Booker T-goes-digital groove of Everybody Knows, and the woozy soul of Pushin' A Broom suggesting that if this was another of Holmes' soundtracks, it would be set somewhere on a backroad between Memphis and New Orleans.

Add the sheer vitality of the Reveron-rapped Don't Rhyme No Mo and the paranoid Le Baggage at the end and this is one Holmes show that turns out to be quite brilliant.

Label: Mercury