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For those that have come across the International Peoples Gang (IPG), there’s not many surprises on the latest International Peoples Gang album. With a massive body of work on other people’s projects and remixes, Martyn Watson and Ric Peet (plus assorted musical ‘gang’ members) have had to take their time to produce another fusion of “kaleidoscopic house, funk, folk, downtempo and pop hybrid sound even further into the unknown”.

The new album starts with a track called ‘Junior Cycle’ that is so reminiscent of Future Loop Foundation’s Memories From A Fading Room that I had to check I had the right CD on. And then at the start track 2 (conveniently entitled ‘Second’), there’s cut-up recording of Pete Townsend’s ‘Blue, Red And Grey’ in the background under a thumping bassline; it reminded me of something you might have found on a Best Of Chill album some years back.

So I’m thinking, where’s the International Peoples Gang of previous albums 3395, an album that made The Wire’s top ten albums of 1995 and Action Painting in 2006. Well thankfully, we’re onto something with ‘Caught Up In Something’. It’s a gentle downtempo beat that features the whispered vocals of Katty Heath (Hint, Flatpack, The Herb Birds) that glides like a soft-synth siren and it’s topped off at the end with a bit of trombone by Jim Baron and some bird twittering.

There I’m thinking Big Chill Festival and the strings of ‘Place Des Abbesses’ make way for a bit tango with a clarinet solo (by Howard Mills). It’s a short example of Cinematic Orchestra meets Gotan Project ‘Easy’ and the Camel-esque ‘271 The Trencherman’ are definitely a tracks that would sound ideal on a sunny day in a big field in Herefordshire. You can see why the last remix they did was for a label called Is It Balearic? Recordings.

And the album stays on an OST vibe but the album reaches its peak with the soulful funk beat of ‘Angel Delight’ that features the vocals of Jay Thomas (Daughter of UK Underground House legend, Tony Thomas) and as delightful as her voice is, there’s some dirty bouncing synths joining in with the Fire Station alarm bell; as Peterson would say, “Tune”. And this track seamlessly merges into ‘Space Book’ that’s got that Emanative/Daedelus strings meets clarinet spacebeats groove (along with an electric guitar warp by Dave Morton); so one track that sounds like two of my favourite produces at the same time; killer.

You should also check ‘Nascent’ with the Japanese spoken word and the out there ‘Astronomy’ that are a bit soundscape.

An album that started off on the wrong foot really comes good by the end as it more gets more out a cross-genre masterpiece.

P.S. for the first release on Hi-Phi Music, top marks for getting some special packaging for the CD - patented by Jakebox, Sweden you know.

Hectic Mix nominations: ‘Caught Up In Something’, ‘Place Des Abbesses’, ‘Angel Delight’, ‘Space Book’, ‘Nascent’, ‘Astronomy’.

Reviewed: International Peoples Gang - Up (Hi-Phi Music) Cat. No. HIPHILP1 Release date: 29th March 2010
1. Junior Cycle (2:01)
2. Second (4:48)
3. Caught Up In Something feat. Katty Heath (5:40)
4. Place Des Abbesses (3:10)
5. Son Of Still (2:48)
6. Instant Sideways (4:38)
7. Angel Delight feat. Jay Tomas (3:36)
8. Space Book (3:55)
9. Nascent feat. Chika Woodward (2:17)
10. Astronomy (2:18)
11. Easy (4:02)
12. 271 The Trencherman feat. Katty Heath (4:56)

Links:
www.internationalpeoplesgang.co.uk
myspace.com/internationalpeoplesgang
kattyheath.co.uk
myspace.com/kattyheath
www.jakebox.com