In places this cheap fila trainers has a lolling, hyper-cool, chill-out groove, such as on the supreme trip hop departure  The Sheriff'. In others it's up and in your face. But it's always funky and always supremely melodic& a bit like a Sasha set on valium. In other words it's as essentially Balearic as a bottle of San Miguel outside Cafe Mambo. All the more surprising, then that the album is made by a bunch of stoners from Hull who have never been to the White Island. Any Fila Brazillia album is worth buying, but if you can manage to track this down, this alone it is worth its weight in lbizan gold.

Considered a pre-cursor to the downbeat and trip hop movement, Fila fila 95 Brazillia have explored the relationship between organic instrumentation and electronic sensibility throughout the 90's arriving logically at Jump Leads . As pioneers of a post-punk northern England musicality, their journey has been defined simply by their musical insight rather than genre fila all white specification. Dub rhythms, house beats, drum n' bass syncopation, ambient chords, and funk arrangements have all found their way into Fila's sound without falling into the clichéd territory of  eclecticism'.

Same thing goes with Cobby and Fila's approach to DJ ing. Absorb their new Another Late Night mix CD  which moves beautifully through the sounds of Marvin Gaye, Mr. Scruff, the Beta Band, Brian Eno, Kelis and others  for a taste. Like me, Cobby has little time fila basketball shoes for singularly minded DJs. "Too often it's like,  We just want a load of jigsaw pieces that all fit together nicely. Give us the modular music,'" he sputters. "It's important for us to remember those tapes we did for our friends when we were growing up, that attitude, just that beautiful variety.

Fila Brazillia have been honing their art for over 10 years, and this seventh studio album bears the mark of that experience. More uptempo than many of their previous outings, Touch of Cloth still carries that trademark quirkiness that the Hull-based funkateers have come to represent over the years. As usual with Fila albums, a definite style is difficult to ascertain, as their sounds range from funk to dub to soul to hip hop to broken beat to ambient  usually all in the same track

Laid-back jazz-funk grooves straight fila boots mens out of the '70s are the foundation of the record, but hints of Stevie Wonder-esque soul, hip-hop, bossa nova, ambient, spacey techno, house, minimalist electro, big-beat and trip-hop all pop up here and there, as do touches of ethnic percussion, acoustic guitar, saxophone solos, new age-y synth flourishes, and the occasional odd vocal sample or sound effect. What really pushes Power Clown over the top, though, is that the group maintains their focus throughout, never meandering and changing things up often enough to keep the grooves from becoming repetitive. One of the finest and most over-looked electronic-dance releases of 1998.