Beautiful Tomorrow
Blue Six

If you've heard the classic singles "Music and Wine" and "Sweeter Love" (and you certainly should have) then you'll know the sort of creamy smooth House music that Blue Six excel at. Producer-songwriter Jay Denes' attention to detail with sophisticated production values and classy tunes pays dividends with an album that slowly seduces with soulful vocals and elegant grooves that occupy a stool somewhere between the dancefloor and the chill-out room. While the thumping beats and dumb lyrics of most modern dance music might be the aural equivalent of a one-night stand - good for a quick shag but not something you'll want to hear in the morning - this is a record you'll want to get intimate with again and again, and maybe even take out to dinner sometime. Get jiggy with it. [Official Album Site]

Hallelujah!
La Buena Vida

I know next to nothing about La Buena Vida except that they're Spanish, this is their fifth album, and I'm head over heels in love with it. This minor masterpiece is almost too gorgeous for words (but I'm going to try anyway): a languid and beautiful experience that floats along on the gentle strumming of acoustic guitars and soaring strings to create a lush, graceful sound that you just want to drown in. The tender melodies and intimate male-female vocals conjure up thoughts of Nick Drake singing a duet with Astrud Gilberto on a beautiful autumn day in the park while golden leaves gently fall to the ground all around them. What can I say, some records just bring out the poet in me. Available from [Darla]
Experience
Jill Scott

What’s good enough for Erykah Badu is good enough for Jill Scott as she also follows up her debut with a live album that gives her songs a more earthy, down-home sound than the smooth urban grooves of her debut. Her band Fatback Taffy kick up a funky storm and Jill is sassy and vivacious throughout (though Erykah Badu had better jokes.) If the live set is a fine example of traditional Grits n’ Gravy R&B the excellent second disk of new studio material is something of a smorgasbord of modern styles like hip-hop, house and trip-hop, with the standout being the madly-insistent "Gotta Get Up" collaboration with 4-Hero. It’s getting so you can’t swing a cat these days without hitting a neo-Soul Diva what with Macy, Erykah, Alicia, Angie, India, and Jill all jostling for the spotlight but as long as they keep knocking out albums like this I’ll keep buying ‘em.

What Sound
Lamb

What made Lamb’s previous albums so thrilling was the sense that the songs were in danger of bursting at the seams as Lou Rhodes tried to maintain her vocal poise while Andy Barlow’s abstract musical arrangements came at her from all directions like Jackson Pollock defacing a Monet. Apparently that tension wasn’t just musical as the duo almost broke up recording their last album, but now they’ve kissed and made up and have settled on a style they can both live with. Unfortunately it seems the price of peace is the end of the high-wire daring that made them so great in the first place and they've hunkered down in the comfort zone of some nice, but fairly bog-standard, downtempo electronica. There’s good stuff here but nothing that a million other chill-out bands haven’t already done. Let's hope they get pissed off with each other again before they go back into the studio.