Under Your Sky [Audio CD] Underwolves

In the fickle world of dance music, a year between the completion of an album and its release is often enough to sink a project. Thankfully with Under Your Sky Professor Stretch and Ned Kelly have managed to weather a storm which has seen them to the eventual surfacing of this, their debut long-player. The album itself, recorded in a farmhouse studio in Bedfordshire, is nothing if not ambitious with the pair stating a desire to create something timeless at the original press round. To all intents and purposes, they have succeeded with the drum & bass roots still evident within Under Your Sky but making a sideways shift to a unique sound which is closer to Omar than Optical. There is something for everyone here, championed right across the board--from Bukem to Peterson--the street-soul feel is as accessible as it is enjoyable with the occasional forages into breakbeat supplemented by some stunning vocal tracks cowritten with accomplished American singer/songwriter Jeb Lee Nichols. --Kingsley Marshall