91Èȱ¬

(. It's got acting in it. BAAAAD acting.)

Timbaland is the exception that proves I'm right about everyone else. In the past he's been brilliant at working unusual sounds - from tablas and tinny little mandolins to what sounds like bits of old tree being whacked against other bits of old tree - into seamless and beautiful musical tapestries. In fact, I would advise anyone with an ear for something unusual - and a high tolerance for grown-up content/country music - to listen to Bubba Sparxxx's 2003 album 'Deliverence' if you haven't already. It's a sonic masterpiece.

This song, while being a way off anything as perfect as that (or 'Get Ur Freak On', now I come to think of it) is an attempt to pull together some of the recent production ideas Timbo has been throwing around. There's the squitty, burbling synth, which always sounds DEAD RUDE in his filthy hands, the clunky, booming log-pile bass drum, and those odd little drunken typewriter-on-a-tin-can clicks and clacks.

Best of all, for a production powerhouse and supreme dancefloor manipulator Tim never forgets to bring the song to the fore. Even if he's decorating it with silky SoShy backing vocals and wheeling out his yodel-vocoder, the song is all. Even, in fact, when it's a song as comparatively silly and weedy as this one.

He is, after all, a man with certain standards to maintain.

Download: Out now
CD Released: September 28th

91Èȱ¬ Music page

(Fraser McAlpine)