Shawn Lee At Juno Download

Review: We've lost count of the number of albums Shawn Lee's made to date, but it's well in to double figures. Here, the prodigious beatmaker and studio veteran delivers a concept album built around an outer space theme. Down on earth, that means pitching his loose, live drums and rubbery basslines against a variety of far-out synthesizer sounds, presumably created using a variety of vintage machines. For the most part, it's a combination that works well, as Lee switches between recreations of famous basslines and drum breaks (see "Galactica") and distinctly dubbed-out material bearing his famous sonic trademarks (see the Meters-on-acid-meet-Lee Scratch Perry vibes of "Low Riders In Space").

Review: We've lost count of the number of albums Shawn Lee's made to date, but it's well in to double figures. Here, the prodigious beatmaker and studio veteran delivers a concept album built around an outer space theme. Down on earth, that means pitching his loose, live drums and rubbery basslines against a variety of far-out synthesizer sounds, presumably created using a variety of vintage machines. For the most part, it's a combination that works well, as Lee switches between recreations of famous basslines and drum breaks (see "Galactica") and distinctly dubbed-out material bearing his famous sonic trademarks (see the Meters-on-acid-meet-Lee Scratch Perry vibes of "Low Riders In Space").

Review: Part of the Breakin' Bread's "Drums Series", two experimentalists and studio dons - Virgil Howe and Shawn Lee - cook up some live breaks and funky sci-fi Moogs for this excellent single. With the aim of the series to get producers to abandon loops and sequencers and produce all their beats live, the pair work up a storming LCD meets Dennis Coffey break that is enlivened with some tight psych-electro melodies. "Go Go Gadget Break" is possibly even better - strongly and gloriously recalling the "Go-Go" sound of early '80s acts such as Trouble Funk and the Junkyard Band.