Groove Armada - Get Down / Soundboy Rock

Back in Spain, Cato invited MAD - the voice on Superstylin', their live MC, present and correct on every Groove Armada album to date - to jam over some records. He came up with the phrase 'soundboy rock'; Cato figured it sounded like 'a classic reggae chorus'. So out came Cato's bass (for 'a proper reggae rumbling bassline'), and in came Hard-Fi's Richard Archer on melodica. Cue the title track, packing a laidback reggae wallop in the middle of the album.

And onwards and upwards rolled the Soundboy buzz… Tony Allen, formerly of Fela Kuti's band and currently featuring in The Good, The Bad And The Queen with Damon Albarn, agreed to chip in. As did Candi Staton - the legendary vocalist had appeared at the Lovebox Weekender. Her gutsy vocal and Allen's bewitching drumming, as well as rolling piano chords and stabs of strings, combine to dazzling effect on the Philly-esque soul classicism of Paris. Candi pops up again on the dancefloor dynamite of Love Sweet Sound.

After many months and miles and emailed mega-files, Findlay joined Cato in Barcelona for six intense weeks of 20-hour days at the end of 2006. Over countless fags, Heinekens and pizzas they wrestled their many-limbed album into shape. And more collaborators kept joining the eclectic party: Simon Lord from Simian Mobile Disco added vocals to The Things That We Could Share, and Alan Donohoe from The Rakes did the same to the wonderful See What You Get . Welsh-dwelling American Jeb Loy Nichols supplies croony folk-vibes to What's Your Version?, while Findlay's Sugardaddy collaborator Tim Hutton supplies the chorus. Buzzed-about newcomer Jack McManus - now with his own record deal - brings spacey vocal ambience to the bleepy textures of From The Rooftops (imagine Erik Satie soundtracking 2001: A Space Odyssey).
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