Will Holland seems to be on a pretty strict album schedule, alternating between the Quantic and QSO alias' every year, and since 2005 was a Quantic Soul Orchestra year (released the Pushin On album), we get a new Quantic album this year. If you can say anything for this guy, it's that he has done an exceedingly good job of diversifying his sound, experimenting with different tempos and styles with pretty much blanket success. This new album continues the trend, with Quantic dipping into his many robes of latin, afro, broken, hip hop, mellow, etc. It's a lean and mean round of 9 tracks with something slightly different around every corner. I hate to play spoiler, but the best track comes at the end with "Tell It Like You Mean It," a cool breeze on the rocks cut that first appeared on the b-side of that Quantic & Mr Scruff single. Something about those horns, they just feel like my 300 year old friend, and he manages to drop them over the broken beat stuff without making it sound forced at all. The first couple tracks are built off the more traditional downtempo -funk - drums approach, where he still comes with the goods. "Absence Heard" Presence Felt" starts it off with RZA-like strings and muted percussion, then "An Announcement" To Answer" rolls out the proper beatmaking with all these catchy xylophones and stuff. While I'm not all that into the two tracks with rapper Ohmega Watts, I think that's just because Quantic sounds better with singers: check out "Politick Society"with singer Noelle Scaggs or the great latin cut "Sabor" with Hector "Tempo" Alomar. Another strong entry in the ever-growing Quantic catalog.

• music label: Ubiquity / 2006

reviewed by the mgmnt 08/2006