Given the undoubted quality of Howard Williams’ first release for Berceuse Heroique under the Japan Blues moniker – the superb Brasserie Heroique Edits Volume 2 – you’d expect this second 12″ for Kemal’s imprint to be equally inspired. It is, of course, with Williams’ digging deep in his near bottomless crates of obscure Japanese releases for inspiration. He begins with “Spurned My Colour”, a delightfully jaunty and cheery fusion of chiming synthesizer melodies, broken electro drums and sampled vocal stabs. He goes dense and tribal on “Stoned Bird”, brilliantly cutting up, manipulating and rearranging a killer, African-inspired percussion track. As for closer “Beak”, it expertly joins the dots between wonky, undulating live percussion and the weighty pulse of contemporary techno, via some thrilling backwards drum hits.

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