Noonday Underground

As entirely retro as Noonday Underground comes across, Self-Assembly is a completely modern, contemporary album. It certainly evokes the swinging '60s, but it's a vision of retro-futurism informed not by the actual lounge-y, trippy sounds of that era, but by current artistic recreations and fuzzy memories of what the '60s were. Former Adventures In Stereo brain trust Simon Dine has hooked up with chanteuse Daisy Martey to create sounds that recall James Bond theme crooner Shirley Bassey, but their musical vision couldn't gel without first having heard Portishead or Propellorheads' take on Bassey too. Noonday Underground are not slavish recreationists, and the means of their musical vision are entirely modern, even as they slather on the analogue reverb in an effort to swish like Astrud Gilberto. They steal like a kid with one eye on you and one hand in the cookie jar - a knowing wink, an innocent smile and you forgive their cheekiness.