Hinterland

Amazon.com One thing's for sure: Hinterland is unlike any hip-hop album you've heard before. Aim man Andy Turner recorded this follow-up to his excellent debut album, Cold Water Music, in a private studio on the sleepy Barrow-In-Furness seafront, a hundred miles from the bustling hip-hop underground of Manchester, where he made his name. Rolling elements of vintage soul and Burt Bacharach-style songwriting into its grand design, Hinterland pulls out wild cards aplenty. "The Girl Who Fell Through the Ice" finds Turner looping a flourish of violins over frosty synths, as longtime Aim collaborator Kate Rogers wraps her tonsils around a chilled tale of doomed love. The upbeat "No Restriction" revives 's flower-power past, with guesting rap crew offering clever, mischievous rhymes. Meanwhile, "Good Disease" strays right off the hip-hop map: a slick four minutes of R&B-tinted lounge music, it features an unexpected highlight in the form of a falsetto-high cameo from ex- man Stephen Jones. It's not for those that like their hip-hop raw, but Hinterland adds a very welcome bit of subversion to the traditional rap terrain. --Louis Pattison