1000 Watts

On his latest release Quantic returns to the Flowering Inferno moniker he used for his 2010 album Dog With a Rope. As with that album, 1000 Watts is filled with reggae and dub rhythms, though with far fewer diversions into the Latin sounds that have been such a big part of his music recently. 1000 Watts is classy roots-reggae and once you’ve heard it, it will become the sound of your summer. The opening three tracks represent everything great about early reggae-soul and rocksteady, with joyous uplifting grooves, strong lead melodies and full-bodied productions. On ‘A Life Worth Living’, featuring British soul singer Alice Russell and legendary Jamaican toaster U-Roy, it's like hearing The Heptones after a 21st-century spit-and-polish, while ‘Homeward Bound’ is a simple instrumental dub but with an incessant horn line that's pure positivity. The blend of instrumentals, collaborations with vocalists and the odd cumbia cover (Quantic has not forgotten his love of Latin music yet) makes for a joyous album that never gets tiresome. The mix of songs as wildly divergent as the title-track, featuring a swaggering vocal by Christopher Ellis, and the blissful dub ‘Flowering Theme’ never sounds contrived. This is sophisticated reggae full of soul; a cocktail of worldly flavours on the side.