It barely seems like enough time for nostalgia to develop but, to celebrate the 10th anniversary of Mr Scruff’s Keep it Unreal, Ninja Tune have served up this expanded and remastered version of the album.

Unlike the plethora of Hype Machine selected collections that pass as DJ sets, Scruff is a true master of the art of selection drawing from his wealth of knowledge and record collection incorporating soul, funk, hip hop, jazz, reggae, latin, african, ska, disco, house, dub and breaks and delivering it all with casual cheek. Scruff’s best work comes in his role as a DJ and his ability to merge genres with casual dexterity. There’s no flashy mixing, no mashup bootlegs, just a sweet brew of tunes guaranteed to cause an outbreak of grins. His contributions to the Solid Steel mix series Keep it Solid Steel is a superb example, offering a seamless blend from start to finish.

Scruff’s most recent album Ninja Tuna had a cast of guest guests including Quantic, Alice Russell and Roots Manuva, but Keep it Unreal is a different kettle of fish. Released the same year as Moby’s Play, Scruff found a decent paycheck and cross over appeal in the world of advertising, though not to the extreme extent as the outspoken American (as an aside – they also both ventured into the world of tea – the perfect accompaniment to so much ambient music – Moby with the NY boutique TeaNY and Scruff with his own line of teas available at his gigs.)

The album’s most recognisable tune – still Scruff’s best known tune – Get a Move On hasn’t faded with time. The track rides for over seven minutes on a jittery horn sampled from Bird’s Lament (In Memory of Charlie Parker) by avant-garde New Yorker Moondog – who has been recently ‘rediscovered’ and reissued on several labels including Soul Jazz and Damon Alburn’s Honest Jon. The squiggly excursions do occasionally stray into polite café jazz territory (is a reissue of St Germain’s Tourist from 2000 far away?), but with the presence of the always reliable Roots Manuva Jus Jus is a standout.

The album ends with Fish, sampling the very proper BBC voices of David Attenborough and David Bellamy rambling on about sea critters. It’s a whimsical piece of filler and something that became a Scruff trademark with the idea repeated on other records – see Ahoy There! on 2002’s Trouser Jazz.

The second disk features an additional 42 minutes of scruffy goodness with six unreleased tracks from the original studio sessions, including two B-sides and the instrumental version of Jus Jus. The self explanatory Vibraphone Boogie and the animated bass jerks of Trollmarch must have just missed the cut on the original release, though Ambiosound, a collection of samples flogging the features of an audio system’s ‘ambiosound’ features now feels fairly dated.

The reissue certainly isn’t an obligatory buy for owners of the original, but the additional tracks will provide the perfect soundtrack to a lazy Sunday arvo drink – or cuppa. For the curious there’s also a special 15 minute megamix of the record available for download on Scruff’s site