Electric Lazyland

The second album from 9 Lazy 9 goes deeper into the dark, jazzy world of the duo's debut. If there's one thing to set apart James Braddell and Keir Fraser's brand of cool, jazzy trip-hop, it's the quirkiness and a feeling that things could go very wrong at any moment. "B Hip & Shop" has an uplifting sax riff but noisy rattlings and shifts bring the Residents to mind. The sampled female voice on "Very Gently" could be chanting either transcendental meditation text or instructions for slow torture. The music fits, bending the jauntiest tunes and melodies and backing them up with echoing keyboards and shuffling dark beats. Braddell and Fraser must have quite a collection of golden-age Blue Note and Verve to sample from. They don't do much with Thelonious Monk's "Monk's Dream," but generally their samples and the wall of sludge constructed around them are cool and crafty. The problem is there's way too much of it and without a wealth of new ideas, Electric Lazyland's 74-minute run time begs to whittled down a bit. ~ David Jeffries|