Esthero - Breath From Another (Columbia)

In which 19-year old singer Esthero doubles up with fellow Canadian, producer Martin McKinney for eleven tracks that set out to combine just about every current style of dance music into one ever-evolving soup. Despite this description, Breath From Another is not some cheesy world-beat voyage, but more a short-wave surf into credible X Files territory. The title track is as poppy as they come, elsewhere (on 'Heaven Sent' and others), the pre-millenium female vocalist and male beat junky combination is highly Portishead and lightly Smoke City. More precisely, elements from Esthero are uncannily similar to Bristol's Easter Island art pop duo.

Can sonic Bond extravagances really combine with drum and bass and jazz samples to make a coherent full-length album? Well, ask Bjork for the answer to that one. A fine debut, Esthero lack the crazy edge of an equally mixed-up act like Koop, but come out sounding equally accomplished. 7/10


This review also published in: DJ magazine