Bombay Dub Orchestra - 3 Cities

Once again Garry Hughes and Andrew Mackay have gone from the UK to India, recording with artists in both countries to produce 11 tracks of chilled out orchestral grooves.

This time round, the duo worked in bit Chennai and Mumbai - even recording in Bollywood heavyweight Yash Raj's studio!  3 Cities makes heavy use of string sections to build emotive scapes that are cinematic but seem more textured than their previous album.  Funnily enough, despite the Bollywood connection, this album in fact seems to sound more developed than many modern scores being written for film and I'd love to see the Bombay Dub Orchestra applying their musical talent to the big screen soon.

Overall, this album feels more mature than their debut release; perhaps due to their own development as composers now working with large numbers of players per track.  When listening in sequence the tracks stand our in their own right and it makes for a highly enjoyable album-listen, though the dj in me sees many a mixed [tape] spinning out from various angles of 3 Cities.