1 Giant leap

For the past year, Duncan Bridgeman and Jamie Catto have been traversing the world gathering rhythms, voices, sounds and images for a project designed majestically to find “one global pulse”. Taking in Ugandan xylophone groups, Ghanan drummers, Indian electric mandolin players and vocals from Nenah Cherry, Robbie Williams and Maxi Jazz, it all sounded a little too Peter Gabriel-on-speed to be much cop.

Thankfully however they’ve garnered enough spot on contributions from Michael Franti, DJ Speech and Grant Lee Phillips – all held together by 1GL’s pre-recorded soundtrack – to draw the curious in to this diverse melange.

‘Braided Hair’ sees Speech and Nenah Cherry swap positive vocal statements over some scratching courtesy of DJ Swamp – an out and out future hit single. ‘The Way You Dream’ features vocals from Ashe Bhosle (one of Bollywood’s premier singers and celebrated by Cornershop in their ‘Brimful Of Ashe’ single) and Michael Stipe.

‘My Culture’ could simply be Faithless with Robbie Williams on guest vocals and betrays Catto’s roots as founder member of that group. The insistent electronic beat underlies most tracks but somehow fuses with the underlying natural rhythms of Bamba Maal and the Mahotella Queens.

In spite of the multitude of disparate happenings on each track, 1Giant Leap might nevertheless entice people to check out something a bit more adventurous next time they’re given a record token.