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Lost Horizons

by Lemon Jelly

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As anyone who's heard their exuberant first album will tell you, Lemon Jelly are no ordinary chill-out act. Here, the eccentric duo present their second full-length outing, Lost Horizons, and it's every bit as good as their acclaimed debut, Lemonjelly.ky. Inhabiting a world of almost limitless playfulness, Nick Franglen and Fred Deakin make the sort of brassy, beautiful downtempo music that leaves the listener desperately trying to suppress a goofy grin. You see, Lost Horizons is that rarest of things: a focused, humorous, and exciting chill-out album that stands up to repeat listening. Often, this kind of tongue-in-cheek chillage can sound dull and contrived (or, worse, sickly and overbearing), but Lost Horizons is anything but tedious. It bristles with shimmering, sunny instrumentation (jaunty acoustic guitars, skippy beats, tinkling pianos, oh-so-English brass band fanfares--even the odd harp), while quirky, oddball samples lurk 'round every turn ("Nice Weather for Ducks," for example, is a country-funk shakedown based on a sample from a nursery rhyme). From the percussive space jazz of "Return to Patagonia" to the seductive, sleepy closer, "Curse of Ka'zar," Lost Horizons doesn't so much glimmer as positively shine. Is it 2002's best downtempo album? Almost certainly. --Matt Anniss