Album: Balkan Beat Box, Blue Eyed Black Boy (Crammed Discs)

This New York trio have been producing deftly programmed global fusion for more than five years now, but it's on this third album that their songwriting skills finally measure up to their studio craft.

There's a stronger hip-hop undercurrent, a greater sense of political engagement, the beats have more forward momentum, and every blast of Berber woodwind and Gypsy brass seems to be part of an organic whole. They're now a band I can't wait to see live; the ultimate compliment.