If you know me, it’s no secret that I’m always excited by a new release from NinjaTune Records. I’m also a longtime observer of NinjaTune artists Coldcut, seeing their meteoric mixmastering rise and fall thru the course of the last 15 years. I have lived to see their glory rise again with the release of Sound Mirrors, the duo’s first studio album since 1997.

Coming back like lions, Sound Mirrors marks itself as the most comprehensive, experimentally interesting, and listenable slice of Coldcut glory I’ve heard in years. Matt Black and Jon More have always lived on the edge with their choices as remixers — some have worked perfectly while others fell decidedly flat. Instead of throwing the towel in, they went back to the lab to hash out delicious lo-fi beatology, digging for subject matter that ranges from the sublime to the dead serious. There are special appearances from Jon Spencer (of JSBX fame), hip hop impresario Roots Manuva, one of our faves here at Scenestars Mpho Skeef shows up, and this icy lyrical stick-and-move on the big business of relief agencies, entitled “Aid Dealer”, delivered by saxophonist and Mercury Prize nominee Soweto Kinch.

If anyone needs proof of Coldcut’s parenthetical dominance over the genre they helped to create, one need listen only to Sound Mirrors trying to draw comparison to any other collection of it’s type. It is when one cannot find that comparison one should recognize how far this production team has come; they have earned their propers among the sometimes dodgy and sordid field of those who have been born in their wake. Coldcut may have turned a few corners, but they’ve never stopped their groove from being on the move.

The first single, “Everything Is Under Control”, is available now exclusively from iTunes. Click Here To Purchase It Directly From iTunes.

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