UNKLE - Never Never Land

I was listening to this CD by James Lavelle's UNKLE since it was released. I really like this project, and though Spooky has left UNKLE, I still find their work to be very good. Many have given this CD mediocre reviews, and have favored their first relase, "Psyence Fiction", and while I like their first release, I tend to think that this one is equally worthy.

UNKLE essentially is breaks DJ James Lavelle. On the first UNKLE album, "Psyience Fiction", he teamed up with DJ Shadow to make a dard and beats driven collection of tracks. Dj Shadow and James Lavelle apparently had a falling out of natural disaster magnitude, and for "Never Never Land", Lavelle primarily collaborated with his long time friend and musician Richard File.

"Never Never Land" is not so much a dance CD, as it is an "album" of songs. There are a multitute of guests on this album. From Pulp lead singer, Jarvis Cocker, Guitarist Josh Homme, The legendary Brian Eno, former Stone Roses vocalis Ian Brown, Massive Attack'sRobert del Naja, this disc has loads of contributors, making the absence of DJ Shadow not much of a loss at all.

The contributions on this album are not gratuitous, like some market driven hip hop album. Each contributor is able to put his own stamp on the tracks with which they were involved.

I'm not going to review any particular track, but instead will recommend this dark and brooding album (If you like Radiohead, you might like this album - though they're hardly similar)as a find that will have you wondering why everyone hasn't heard of James Lavelle.