Hint

Track Listing: Actory The Look Up Words To That Effect Why The Top Ten Sucks In 2002 You Little Trooper Re:percussions Quite Spectacular Plucker Shout Of Blue Count Your Blessings Air To Sky

Released 5/03 on Ninja Tune / Hombré Recordings. Written and recorded in a portakabin by J. James. 'Portakabin Fever' sounds, to all great extent, like Bonobo's little brother. Chopped up beats and soothing piano melodies form the majority of the tunes, which on the whole are instrumental with the occassional querky spoken sample popping up here and there. There's a consistent underlying theme of simplicity in all of the tracks, which adds to the laid back mood of this impressive debut. The cartoon style cover art and story within, detailing what actually happened to Hint and friends at his portakabin in the Swamp, is well worth a read (plus you get a page of stickers featuring all the characters!). All this is also mirrored in Hint's excellent web site. Essential horizontalness.

Track Listing: Quite Spectacular (5.30) Nimble (6.00)

Released 2003 on Ninja Tune. Licenced from Hombré Recordings. Written and recorded in a portakabin by J. James. Track 1 taken from the album 'Portakabin Fever'. Quite spectacular is exactly what this 10" vinyl is; I stumbled upon this by accident and what a find. Take the tongue-in-cheek elements of Lemon Jelly and sprinkle in some of the Sunday afternoon horizontalness of Bonobo and give it all a big hug and ....I guess that's 'Quite Spectacular'. I can't do this justice by waffling - lets just say that both the title tune and 'Nimble' are fantastic down-tempo moments and leave it at that.

Track Listing: Count Your Blessings - Blessed by Minotaur Shock (7.03) Count Your Blessings - Blessed by Bonobo (5.48)

Released 9/03 on Ninja Tune. Licenced from Hombré Recordings. Written and recorded in a portakabin by J. James. Original version of 'Count Your Blessing' taken from the album 'Portakabin Fever'. Track 1 re-written, re-produced and paddling pool addition by Minotaur Shock. Track 2 picked up, re-written and re-produced by Simon Green. Both Minotaur Shock and Bonobo do the business, taking the original album version of 'Count Your Blessings' and giving it a personal twist of their own, with the longer Minotaur Shock coming out on top.

Other Info:

For further information on Hint see their official web site.