Bleep

Initially released in 2000, Tosca’s Suzuki has emerged as a cornerstone of post-trip-hop and downtempo electronica in a manner similar to Mr Scruff’s contemporaneous Keep It Unreal. As one might expect from an album dedicated to a Zen master - Shunryu Suzuki, if you were wondering - the tracks here all evoke a sense of meditative calm as they bob along for several minutes at a time. Each cut carefully turns over a set of base materials - classic funk drum samples, chopped-up nuggets of vocals, jazz-fusion-tinged bass guitar and so on - in order to examine each in turn. The two producers pull instruments forward and back in the mix with great care and a fine curatorial instinct.