Eccentric Audio is the sophomore album from Smoove and Turrell and if you love Northern Soul, hip-hip, jazz, blues, trip-hop, funk or house music then this is the album you should be listening to in 2011. The Geordie duo, John Turrell and producer Smoove have created an uplifting and ‘eccentric’ album.

Their first album, Antique Soul, was greeted positively - receiving rave-reviews from 6Music funk aficionado Craig Charles. They have a rich history, with Smoove having been formerly signed to the Acid Jazz label as a solo artist. This is an album full of zest and class which befits its pedigree.

Turrell’s voice is like coffee, deep and dark but has a smooth and uplifting kick to it. But it is Smoove’s carefully crafted songs, full of reference points to a plethora of genres which really make this a satisfying listen.

Lead single, ‘Slow Down’, suggests the opposite of what its title says; upbeat, with horns blowing, bass thumping, vinyl scratching and percussion shaking - this is a song which could keep bums shaking across dance-floors in jazz and blues clubs all over the country. ‘Wasted Man’ sounds like a song off a lost Nick Drake soul album if it was produced by Tricky, “Don’t let me be the lonely man...”, croons Turrell. ‘Money’, an ode to the state of the country in 2011 - but could equally have been part of the skinhead movement in the 80s. Disillusioned youth, broken society, rich richer, poor poorer. “How long you gonna push ‘till a man can lose his home?”, sings Turrell dripping in melancholy. ‘Hard Work’, has backing vocals and wit and swagger enough to recall Ray Charles’ ‘Gold Digger’. Padded out with a horns throughout and a horn-solo in the middle, this gets fingers clicking and feet tapping. ‘Broke’ is, like, ‘Money’, a politically themed song about not having much money. Throughout there is an awareness of the context in which this album is made, but the lyrics are unspecific enough to make them easy to relate. Later songs like, ‘Gabriel’, ‘Let Yourself Go’ and ‘Don’t Let It Go To Your Head’, groove and swell - Turrell’s chocolate voice complimenting Smoove’s top-notch soul.

The first half of this album is stronger than its last songs, but that is not to say that its bad - just that it changes to a much more comfortable pace. If you like one of their songs then it is likely you will like the rest. Smoove and Turrell have made a very good album, it’s eccentric as the album title suggests. While it only references other genre’s and artists it has its own voice, without pushing the boundaries too music musically it does acrobatics around the sounds it chooses to evoke.

This duo probably deserve some mainstream success, but they are not a commercial outfit and there’s not enough pop sensibility in their songs for this to happen, what they deserve is for more people to hear this album. Fans of current chart-topping soul stalwart Aloe Black could do much worse than hearing this album, as could the dancers in the Northern soul clubs in the late 60s.