Shangri La

Let’s get it down straight away: Shangri La by electro duo Yacht is a bit of a bewildering beast. Essentially a concept record based on the idea of heaven/nirvana/paradise, its impact is massively hampered by the patience-testing, super-cheesy spoken-word passages that introduce every single track. It’s not all bad though: if you get past the needless posturing, the actual music on the record represents some of their best work to date. ‘Dystopia (The Earth Is On Fire)’ is a massively catchy track that benefits greatly from sampling Rock Master Scott & The Dynamic Three’s classic cut ‘The Roof Is On Fire’ while ‘One Step’ is the greatest track that the Human League never made. All told then, Shangri-La is a brave, if highly flawed effort.