Epsilon-Blue: We have a Responsibility to our Shareholders

By RUSSELL BAILLIE

(Herald rating: * * * * )

The second album from Epsilon-Blue, an Auckland studio whiz named Leyton who has also released an ambient album under the Rotor+ moniker, is quite a revelation.

Sure, the Epsilon-Blue debut had its moments, such as the alt-radio hit One in a Million.

But Shareholders is something else again - an ambient/dub/house affair that rises above its combined genres while delivering some cracking songs, a hip-swaying energy care of its warm electro-throb basslines, and the feel that its nine tracks - five of which clock in above the eight-minute mark - are all going somewhere together.

To a brighter, greener future perhaps as Epsilon-Blue tries to imbue his largely synthetic creations - which come with titles such as What to Honour if Not the Planet We Live On (Greenpeace Mix) - with some well-meaning ecological themes.

But if that suggests this will be the sort of stuff you'll hear on high rotate down the health food shop, don't worry.

Actually, that aforementioned track is an early highlight with its slow-fused beat layering, complete with faux conga attack, a twitch of acoustic guitar and one of its counterpoint synthesizer lines adding a bit of Disco Inferno to the mix.

Cool.

Three tracks are vocal-driven - the opening digital-dub of We B Movin' (featuring Barnaby Weir, of Wellington's Black Seeds) which suggests a collision of Salmonella Dub and French pop boffins Air; May U Be Free (featuring Tama Waipara) is a rumbling soul-sung extended house track; And U R A Star (featuring Josephine) takes this into the Strawpeople's territory of lush, sophisticated electro-pop.

Elsewhere, you can't help but think the likes of U R Here / Two of Everything and the loping Let the Island Recompose Itself as Music deserve to be heard through those really big speakers at your mate's place, while the extended shimmer of Being swirls past suggesting a theme to a dark and interesting movie.

Yes, it says you can recycle the cardboard packaging but it's highly unlikely you'll want to after hearing Epsilon-Blue try to put one nation under its eco-groove.

Label: Kog