| · Orange whip anyone?
Good lord it’s been a long time since someone has brought this music outside, back into the light and fresh air. This latest album proves nujazz still has a lot of miles left on it before its next major overhaul.
Next Plateau is positively opulent in its reliance on broken beat mania. At its worst, this album sounds like an updated United Future Organization (not bad company to keep), at its best, it breaks ground simply by giving the genre a renewed sense of whimsy.
The strength of the nujazz movement has been its ability to adapt, fuse and incorporate various musical influences into the genre without forcing the sonic merger. In keeping with that formula, NOHA eloquently blend elements of drum ’n’ bass, Latin house, dub, hip-hop and, of course, breaks to truly push the album to that next plateau. The use of Middle Eastern time signatures on their single "The Balkan Hotstep" is one of the must-hears of late 2003, having been charted by both the BBC’s Keb Darge and Giles Peterson. The Latin-soaked "Chillin’" cleverly takes the piss out of the rampant plastic of the euro-dance scene, while providing one of the most infectious hooks on the album.
NOHA’s biggest hook though, lies in the organics of it all. Producing organic dance music that’s sonically fresh without engaging in the cliché of others is an inspired task and NOHA pulls it off without a hitch. As is the case with all good dance-electronic albums, at some point you forget there’s a beat and hear only the music, which, thankfully for NOHA, seems to be their only message.
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