Team Shadetek Burnerism

And not "bummerism" as I originally misread and typed. On paper Team Shadetek are a magnificent prospect, taking the outer limits of street hip-hop and experimental electro and stretching them for a sonic trip for fans and the uninitiated alike. I say on paper, because there's quite a lot of bluster for them to live up to. The very fact that their debut album named after their ethos of only releasing tracks that are, in their words, "burning hot", suggests an almost tragic capacity for hubris.

With their roots in the street culture of downtown Manhattan, and now with their SHTBox studio in Berlin, Team Shadetek are Soze.sht and Zach Zizmore, known as Schell and Tucker to their families, two NY dancehall kids who've been producing tracks since 1999. Their ethos and music is heavily mixed up in an NY culture of street hip-hop, wild-style graffiti, graphic arts and cutting edge audio-visual culture. They're also part of the Change Agent art gang, a street-culture collective who work various, often digital media, demonstrating an urban-technological sensitivity. Again on paper, this album is beautifully illustrated with abstract urban-combat graphics from the Brooklyn-based street artist Swoon, who also contributed hand-made covers for earlier releases.

Another key influence here - perhaps the reason for the braggadocio and posturing - is their background in street wild-style battles, be it aerosol art, DJing or MCing. There's also some punk wreck-it-yourelf, some ragga and jungle heaviness, a little bit of rave, and the inevitable influence of electro-pioneers and all-round nutters like Autechre and Aphex Twin.

Nevertheless, despite the widespread acclaim and now almost global underground trendiness, this isn't a flawless album. Opener Menthol threatens to rock the house, but then The Fax sounds like Beck mucking about with synths circa Odelay!. Limes is crunching and reckless, while Two and a Half Months is the kind of beats and squeaks that Four Tet carries off with such aplomb, only carried off with slightly less aplomb. Infamy (they've all got it in for me) indeed rocks, and Hard Dragon is complex, layered and funky, with a deep, grinding hook, but in between House of Leaves is pretty aimless and messy - and that's messy in, like tidy up, not Jackson Pollock or Robert Altman.

So it kind of lives up to the bluff, but not quite. At not much more than half and hour, and with at least of a third of the tracks kinda sketchy, it gives the impression of being almost a fine album. With some time and thought, these guys will produce work that really lives up to their CVs and obvious love for the cutting edge. I was going to give this (6), but then I took another listen to best track, the more minimal and at times beautiful "Lanolin", which lifts this little album, just, to a promising 7/10.