Sly ... Robbie With Howie B

MUCH AS I love Howie B's music, I absolutely hate reviewing his records. Mr. Bernstein creates soundscapes the way Monet created lanscapes and, like Rorschach tests, they can mean completely different things to different people. They can also mean different things to the same people at different times, depending on moon, setting and the amount of spliff consumed.

I've listened to Strip To The Bone at least ten times over the last three days and still can't work out where to file it.

Recorded over eight days in a Kingston studio last year at the suggestion of Island boss Chris Blackwell, it is a drum ... bass collaboration between the Scottish ambient maestro and world renowned dub-reggae percussionists, rasta duo Sly ... Robbie. So it's a match not only made in herb heaven but also recorded there. Having said that, this isn't an album that's been permeated by the Jamaican sunshine. Strip To The Bone is very much a night-time offering, midnight mood music that would work as well in a club as it would in the bedroom.

Clocking in at just over seventy minutes, the album ploughs through a variety of adventurous musical styles, from dub and ambient to reggae and not quite full-on drum ... bass. At times, it even ventures into unexpected areas - there are sections of the nine minute 'Drilling For Oil' that are almost salsa. Other tracks like the superb 'Ballistic Squeeze' could have been out-takes from Howie's U2 collaboration Passengers.

This album isn't a fixed entity - it's a bass-driven flux of styles, moods and beats that defies categorization. Having said that, this is one of those few releases that I'll still be listening to this time next year. So trust me and buy it. Strip To The Bone is destined to become a certifiable classic - I can feel it in my bones.