I must admit, I wasn’t expecting much when I picked up Boabinga & ID’s full length CD. It’s not that I don’t think much of them – on the contrary, I have great respect for them as producers and DJs. It’s just that a lot of breaks releases lately have been lacking something, and I expected Big Monster to be more of the same. Oh how much more wrong could I be?!

It is my opinion now Big Monster is one of the best breaks, no; make that best electronic releases of this year, if not this decade. Big call, I know, but from the moment I put this album on, I was entranced. The epic strings of Carve Your Name introduce you to another side of Boabinga & ID, one that invokes the old school sound of electronica and techno, but without any cheesy feeling of nostalgia nor the cashing in on electro. Names like Orbital, Underworld, 808State, and Koma and Bones first album all sprang to mind, as well as genres like Chicago beats, techno and acid house.

And it continues from there, with tunes like their reworking of The Machine and Rite of Passage, giving their singles a deeper musicality that is absent from so much other music of late. NY3.5 is melodic and reflective, and then there’s Jump Up which is a straight up booty shaking grime number. Jersey Street s a throw back to the Acid House party days without the annoying sirens, and the interlude of Blue Green show just how deep music like this can be.

When listening to this album, it took me a while to figure out what was different about this album, and it’s the production. There’s no guitar, no singing (except with the rap on Jump Up); no attempt to sound like a band at all, unlike so many other breakbeat acts who feel inclined to show they can rock just so they can sell a few more records. This is all 303, 808 and virus sounds; electronica at its truest and its finest. Enough talk, just get it and witness a record of great music.