Fila Brazillia, the downtempo machine that never stop churning, presents their 9th studio album, THE LIFE AND TIMES OF PHOEBUS BRUMAL. I don’t know how they manage such tight quality control after so long, but they do it. The melodies are kept tight, and the beats are solid. The strict house beat “Platinum Spider” gives way to the loose and funky breaks of “Underpuppy.” These tracks have much shorter track times, which makes them seem both to move faster and to be underdeveloped. Certainly, after the magnificence of JUMP LEADS, there’s some edge taken off, but the deep throbs and harpsichord of “Thatched Neon” that lead into some horny jazz or the country-western soul thump of “You Won’t Let Me Rock” help recapture the strength. “La Boulangerie Digitale” is as close to pure techno as they’ve ever come; “Boca Raton” keeps the tech feel, but lightens it some. Though Djinji Brown makes an appearance, his involvement is thankfully kept to a minimum. The final track, “Kingdom of Sound,” suffers from his lackluster skills. A mar in an otherwise wonderful album and another change of direction from the Fila boys.

Fila's back and it rocks! And regarding to their previous release "Jump Leads", they threw out their folk-singers inspirations, giving birth to an uptempo weird mutant wich really stand in a futuristic groovy place(ruled by republic designer...). By the way, all the usuals fila's cooking precepts are still present: melodical pearls, organics elements, and totaly weird pieces of dialogue achieve to trap you inside. As listening to this one, you understand the importance of "Jump Leads" in Fila's discographia: the transition from the status of "electronic producers" to "real-accomplished musicians". This fact now etablished, and with this new album, they prove that they would finally never grow up...