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(Hospital Records/Inertia)
Now fronted by beat surgeon Tony Colman, London Elektricity is carving their creative mark through the drum’n’bass genre with their quality productions and unique sound. Previously consisting of Tony Colman and Chris Goss, the pair first threw together a number of productions in 1996; their first release titled ‘Pull the Plug’. Together founding and building the Hospital Records label, they have also pursued projects under the aliases of Dwarf Electro, Future Homosapiens, and Orkestra Galactica. With Chris now taking over full time management of the label, and leaving tune creation duties to Tony. The latest release, ‘Billion Dollar Gravy’ presents to the listener a solid assortment of new productions, ranging from bouncy soulful tracks and tunes with funky personality; that will appease the drum’n’bass fan and amaze the first time listeners.
The title track dives straight into the quality production and low grumbling basslines, presenting a perfect example of London Elektricity’s tuneful dance music that could easily be dropped to a full dance floor, or banged out of your home system. Different Drum is one of the highlight tunes of the cd; combining gospel style vocals with some amazing piano riffs to create quite a dramatic ambience. The frisky bassline tags along cleverly to brighten it up though. Fast Soul Music features spiky strings (a common feature of many of their tracks) over a solid beat and squeaky bass, with enough signature melody to give it the London Elektricity touch. 
The soulful vibe kicks on with To Be Me but the smooth grumbling bass is abandoned momentarily for some nice ‘whumping’ garage bass lines. The Great Drum and Bass Swindle builds up into a feisty main break that is sure not to disappoint. The vibe chills a little at several points with tracks such as Cum Dancing, and Harlesden which seem to have no captivating hook or riff to make them memorable. Main Ingredient cruises along with more excellent vocals from Liane Carrol and some nice electric guitar samples to give it a soft UK Garage feel and pop edge. Born to Synthesise, stands out from the others with its down tempo slow dub groove and crunchy electro sounds with almost a Jamiroquai feel to it. The cd finishes with Syncopated City which carefully combines brass and piano elements to create a unique and catchy tune.
If you enjoy drum’n’bass this is a must buy, but it isn’t your standard hard and dark percussive rage which much of the genre has become known as; rather a mix of funk-centric melodic flavours a la LTJ Bukem and soft intelligent beats; accompanied by smooth basslines with a relentless chilled energy to them. Some of the frisky beats venture into breaks territory and there is a definite touch of soul with vocalists Robert Owens and Liane Carrol featuring on a number of tracks.
