Layo & Bushwacka!: Night Works

By RUSSELL BAILLIE

(Herald rating: * * * )

The second album - after 1998's Low Life - by the London DJ-producer duo of Matthew "Bushwacka!" Benjamin and Layo Paskin is one of those albums which might exude dancefloor-fitness on its blatantly funkier numbers.

But really it's about the throbbing, after-midnight atmosphere it creates across its 14 tracks, most of which hum with steely synthesisers, occasional echo-heavy guitars, not-quite-right voices, and beats which swing from machine-propulsive to attractively askew.

Among the sub-mirrorball numbers are the Groove Armada-like opener Ladies and Gentleman, accelerating house thumper All Night Long, the single Love Story (which samples Nina Simone's voice over the bassline of Devo's Mongoloid) and the slow-fused finale 2MRW.

Spliced with mood-pieces like the electro-gothic Mainlining, the Chemical Brothers-in-Morocco of Sahara, and the sci-fi cop show jazz funk of Sleepy Language, it becomes an artfully relaxed affair.

It's no classic of the dance-albums-for-the-sedentary genre, but it's an imaginative addition to it.

Label: XL Recordings