Dr Boondigga & The Big BW (LP)

The follow-up to Freddy's hugely popular debut album is another amazing, hi-tek dub-soul boil up!

Deep. This word crops up constantly when you talk to various members of Fat Freddy's Drop, the seven-strong New Zealand collective whose unique blend of Hi Tek Soul, Jazz and Reggae has been winning an ever increasing global fan base since the release of their debut album 'Based on a True Story' in 2005. Over the last three years, they've triumphed at the biggest and hippest festivals, from Glastonbury in the UK to the Big Day Out via Sonar In Spain and Le Printemps de Bourges in France, and become the first independent band to debut at number one in New Zealand, in May 2005. Their first album, deep with soulful cuts like the insidiously infectious "Cay's Crays", the chilled-out "Ray Ray", the hypnotic "Wandering Eye" and the epic "Hope", has gone on to sell 200,000 copies, and made them firm favourites with audiences all over Europe too, taking them around the world three times.

So you would have thought that, when it came to recording 'The Big BW', the follow-up, main-man, producer and beat-master Mu, born Chris Faiumu, aka DJ Fitchie, and his band-mates would have felt the pressure to live up to the praise heaped on 'Based on a True Story' - in the UK, The Observer called their debut "a slow-burn winner" while The Guardian chipped in with "transcendental".

Not a bit of it. "There was no external pressure. There was pressure to try and come up with something that's a natural progression and an improvement as well," says Mu from The Drop, his home, studio and the group's convenient base, a few steps away from the beach in Lyall Bay, a suburb of Wellington popular with surfers. "I've spec-ed up my studio but we didn't go in with any preconceptions. It's still jazz, soul and reggae with a bit of a modern take on it. We're better songwriters, we're moving away from the big long jams that are probably more of a live thing."