Kish Kash

Japanese edition of the UK dance act's third album features 15 tracks including 1 exclusive Japanese bonus track, 'Acid Luv' (Twilite Mix). CBS. 2003.

A squiggly, delirious house-pop classic that’s easily among the best albums of 2003, this British production duo’s third album is an interesting parallel to Outkast’s Speakerboxxx, as both albums make their funk the P-Funk, Parliament and Prince looming large throughout, but always in innovative ways. No album (and it is an album, a satisfyingly cohesive and narrative whole) of any genre in recent memory has done the guest vocalist thing as perfectly or as eclectically. Meshell Ndegeocello delivers two of her finest and sexiest performances yet; Lisa Kekaula from garage-soul rockers the BellRays revs up her delicious, Tina Turner -y vocals to near bursting point on "Good Luck." Meanwhile, ‘N Sync's JC Chasez remakes himself as a sort of electro-punk Michael Jackson on "Plug It In"; and speaking of electro-punk, on the anthemic "Cish Cash," Siouxsie Soux herself returns to show all the Liquid Sky’d-out denizens of Williamsburg and Berlin what a postpunk diva really sounds like. This is joyous music as innovative as it is bootylicious. With all its genre-defying tricks, Kish clearly owes a debt to the millenarian bootleg craze, but these songs are more than novelty mash-ups, they’re songs, and this is an album you’ll play years from now. --Mike McGonigal