In my world -- the world made purely of music -- you can stop by any corner for a little four- piece pop, but if ya wanna hear some drum-n-bass, yer takin' the A train. It's somewhere in the outer reaches of electronic music where it rains fast, dry drumbeats that no human could ever play, and gusts of moaning harmonics blow the landscape. Not a place to hang out.

However, Luke Vibert, aka Plug, has put out this here little 2-CD set that brings the sunshine to this barren pioneer's land. A tremendously rich and complex drum-n-bass foundation (and that is, by the way, exactly what it sounds like: electronic drum [fast] and bass [slow]) with a seamlessly integrated layer of unexpected instruments and samples that make d-n-b viable to the inquiring non-techno listener! Disc one (Drum-n-Bass For Papa) is excellent the way DJ Shadow's Endtroducing is: When you listen to it from start to finish, you sit back and say, "Damn, that's good" with a sigh. Disc two (Plug EP's 1, 2 & 3) is a stronger shade of hard; less listenable but a solid companion. Take your shoes off, take a walk in the sand, enjoy the new day in drum-n-bass, and perhaps we'll go skinny-dipping later.

-James P. Wisdom