1 Giant Leap

• Year: 2002
• Rating: 9/10
• Cat. No: PALMCD2077

Track listing:

1. Dunya Shalam
2. My Culture
3. The Way You Dream
4. Ma’ Africa
5. Braided Hair
6. Ta Moko
7. Bushes
8. Passion
9. Daphne
10. All Alone (On Eilean Shona)
11. Racing Away
12. Ghosts

Imagine, for a moment, that Massive Attack circa Blue Lines were to join forces with Peter Gabriel in esoteric film soundtrack mode. Such a scenario does not really do justice to the uncontrived and stunningly organic music that makes up 1 Giant Leap’s debut album, but it gives some idea as to the beauty and collective vibe evoked on these 12 tracks.

Onetime Faithless member Jamie Catto, together with Duncan Bridgeman, are 1 Giant Leap, and in their own words they “travelled around the world collaborating with the most happening authors, scientists and thinkers we could find, to explore the unity in the diversity”. Umm, quite. Yet what results fromthis globetrotting cultural and musical journey is unequivocally beautiful and compelling.

The album does indeed find a unity in the diversity of artists featured, be they Michael Stipe, Neneh Cherry, Baaba Maal, Speech (remember Arrested Development?) or Asha Bhosle, Horace Andy, Grant Lee Phillips and Michael Franti.. Somehow, Catto and Bridgeman’s sense of musical vision manages to pull it all together, often to spellbinding effect.

My Culture, wherein Robbie Williams and Maxi Jazz wax lyrical on ancestry, is destined to be the album’s best-known track, an insistent guitar motif underpinning the mellow groove. Williams’ usual force of personality is never allowed to overshadow proceedings, likewise the Stipe/Bhosle stunner The Way You Dream, which blends the R.E.M. frontman’s distinctive whine into an enchanting asian-flavoured meditation.

Neneh Cherry, for too long now on the fringes of mainstream music, crops up in tandem with the equally-missed Speech for the celebratory Braided Hair, while ex-Fairground Attraction singer Eddi Reader adds some typically gorgeous vocals to a couple of songs (including the haunting closer, Ghosts).

Is this World Music? Literally, it most definitely is, and stylistically 1 Giant Leap occupies the genre with an inspired assimilation of exotic sounds and ethereal voices from all corners of the globe.