In the dark depths of the 1990s, a new genre, Trip-Hop, thrived. It built upon Hip-Hop music’s heavy drum beats with spacey downtempo melodies. Pioneers such as Portishead, Massive Attack and Tricky created masterpieces and ,as so often happens with new ideas, they were imitated to the point of monotony. The creativity that drove early Trip-Hop was factory duplicated by drones of soundalikes. Powerful Rhodes and soaring strings, originally blasts of fresh air, became a rushed staple for the second wave of Trip-Hop artists. Something new was needed and post-Trip-Hop collectives such as Morcheeba and Mudville provided that at the beginning of the 21st century. Understandably this left even less uncharted territory. Yet in 2007 Dinner At The Thompson’s (comprised of New York raised seductive songstress Lucille T, and versatile producer/beatmaker Fablive) drop their refreshing debut LP Lifetime on Planet Earth.

Fablive plants an ever changing backdrop to the album, yet manages to maintain aural cohesion with a sixth sense for sequencing, and a masterful blend of samples and live instrumentation. On tracks such as Daily Vitamins, Consciousness and Corner Store Dinner he uses deep driven basslines, crunchy break beats and cosmic synths reminiscent of J Dilla's and Madlib’s more electronic offerings. Whilst the raw power of these thumping tracks will not only grab your attention but also tempt the shyest of fans to move their body, the stripped down production of other pieces allows Lucille T’s smoky sensual vocal tone to take center place.

Lucille glides over a solemn acoustic guitar on the subdued Soaking Blue delivering line after line of heartfelt reflection reminiscent of Erykah Badu circa Baduizm. However she is equally adept over the more up-tempo electronic sounding tracks. On Reality Check, she rides the bouncing beat with a sense of playful assuredness that draws parallels with Iceland’s most famous export, Björk. What is ultimately most impressive about Lucille is that although her voice displays elements of a select few singers it has a grainy yet smooth component that is both individual and melodically memorable.

Fablive’s blend of banging breakbeats, smooth jazz, acoustic soul and forceful electro is aurally very appealing, yet apart from the brilliant slow jazz stutter of Dark Haze, it would be hard to find anything that will stand the test of the time as majestically as a large portion of the Trip-Hop's forbearers catalogue. Whilst Lifetime on Planet Earth is in no way an imitation of earlier Trip-Hop, it is ultimately a glorified cut and paste job of an eclectic range of genres. The concoctions in question are, perhaps oxymoronically, refreshing yet unoriginal. To say that Lucille is the glue that holds the group's music together would not be far from the mark, but it must also be said that the chemistry between herself and Fablive is fundamental in creating a very promising debut.