One imagines death in Vegas DJ Richard Fearless and his partner Steve Hellier storming through record stores in preparation for their wickedly wide-angled debut, Dead Elvis, leaving vinyl chaos in their wake. They'd raid the dub, jazz and ska bins, move on to the moody synths and funkified break beats, and snag a disc of whale sounds on their way out. Back at the flat, they'd ring a few mates, who'd come round to play – guitars, drums, bass, flute, sax, harmonica. The outcome would be 70 minutes of some of the most inventively inclusive DJ-driven instrumentation this year, from the slow-drawled acid jazz of "All That Glitters" and the crisp toasting of "Twist and Crawl" to the UFO Muzak of "Sly." And in the end, Fearless and Hellier's record-store haul would melt so gracefully into an entirely new groove, you'd forget that vinyl was ever involved. (RS 774)

NATASHA STOVALL