MJ Cole - Cut To The Chase [2003]

[Waffle deleted]

My best summer ever was the summer in Brixton where the whole of South London was flooded with the sunshine tunes of M J Cole's Sincere. And heres the follow up album that I think was largely ignored - not as groundbreaking and elegant as his debut but nonetheless a listen that will help you understand why dubstep producers are in so much mourning for 2 step - only the good die young.

Purchase: plong, mp3fiesta

Freeloaders: sharebee ee7504e6

Border Crossing - Ominous [2005]

Reggae, dub, dancehall, hip hop - Border Crossing are the quintessential underscovered group. Perhaps they simply came too late -they could have saved us from buying every Massive Attack album in the hope that it would be as exciting as Blue Lines or as polished as Protection instead of rather uninspiring. Whatever the reasons I got this in the bargain bin and have listened to it regularly ever since - a quality and varied album that's never bland but possibly too easy on the ear to have reached larger status.

Purchase: 7digital
Freeloaders: sharebee a81d477a

All Good Funk Alliance - On The One [2005]

Often overshadowed by Washington DCs awesome Fort Knox Five, the All Good Funk Alliance have done some crisp tracks and remixes too and I've done my best to badger all my DJ friends into filling their BreakFunk stockings with AGFA and FKF. Sadly for them trawling the web for AGFA's albums defeated them until now (tunestop had one I think) and whilst their best tracks and mixes feature on many compilations there's nothing quite like an album to get you loving a group the way you should. 21st century funk to be sure and well worth purchase price from emusic.

Purchase: emusic
Freeloaders: sharebee da42cc3b

Cleveland Watkiss - Victory's Happy Songbook [2002]

You'll probably have heard Cleveland Watkiss's voice already (he gets around) but his album is a rare example of how a more or less entire album dedicated to God can still be interesting, contemporary and a pleasure to listen to even if you don't share the singer's spiritual sentiments. Soulful in every sense of the word, a solo album by this guy was long overdue

mp3: plong emusic(US)
Freeloaders: sharebee 223fc6bb

Digital Jockey - Codeine Dub [2005]

Another real musician here - piano, Terry Armstrong's amazing voice, a classical vibe and sincere dub sounds . High culture dub reggae soul? - it can't get much better than this. Damn those Germans make some good music when they're not into techno/rap/Hasslehoff

Mp3 purchase: juno, emusic

Freeloaders: filefactory 773b4f