133 Thursdays

I can’t put my finger on quite what’s happening, but Interchill are on this brilliant mission at the moment. After setting the standard in what makes a good chillout, they seem hell bent on now defining just what chillout isn’t. The word Eclectic doesn’t even come close on this one.

Even the prospect of Michael Dog and Full Moon Scientist working together should fill you with some sort of optimism. The proof then emerges by way of a dazzlingly good pudding.

Two minutes into the album and you know you’re heading somewhere special. Take Two More: Fela Kuti meets Innervisions-era Stevie Wonder with Moroccan throat singing with the BBC Radio 4 “pips” at the start. Fucking great, in other words.

Wears The Summer flirts with the whole Naked Music sound, jazzy chillhouse with a slightly sinister, David Lynch-esque vibraphone player.

Mr Jelly fuses Nightmares on Wax with Miles Davis, Wake You suggests The Orb remixing The Beloved, and Hyde Park Fauna sounds like the Muppet Show Orchestra covering Gong.

Cushion is a sublime, stretch-out-in-the-sun piece that couples a Sunday Brunch pianist with a sort of ambient reworking of Bernard Herrmann’s Taxi Driver score. Perfect blowjob music, in other words. Meanwhile, Surreal State sounds as though it’s the product of leaving George Clinton’s soul in a recording studio over a long weekend, and Some Things Just Make You Cry is the greatest piece of post-rave Balearic chill ever recorded.

133 Thursdays is a deliriously fun album. It’s got everything, and lots of it. One of the finest albums ever to have come my way – love it to bits.