Funny how a little thing like winning an MTV award for "Best Video of the Year" ("Virtual Insanity") makes Jamiroquai's next album *anticipated.* Less than two years ago, Jamiroquai was thought to be a spicy Szechwan dish; now every granola-chewing soul left of the Atlantic -- from Phish-fried followers to VJ-savant Jesse Camp -- is wearing the same-style floppy hat donned by band frontman Jay Kay.

Before that look gets tired (actually, it already is), Jamiroquai will be heading into a home studio located forty-five minutes outside London to do some surgical enhancement to their sound. Now in pre-production in a room adjacent to the yet-unfinished studio, the band has completed twelve tracks for the album, eight of which, according to keyboardist Toby Smith, are "album-worthy."

The studio, which doubles as a resort of sorts, overlooks the countryside and has a backyard pool for procrastination purposes. "We can be in the middle of a take, come out of the recording studio, go for a swim and say, 'ah, fuck it, it's not working,'" Smith says.

The new material will have a much more "electro-feel" to it, according to Smith. "We took a click from the drummer and used that to trigger fatter sounds and keyboard kicks and stuff like that," he says. "So, the sound will be quite a lot different, and then it'll have the classic Jamiroquai-esque sound too."

Expect the new Jamiroquai album in stores next summer.

BLAIR R. FISCHER