Buckle, Cut Lips, (1998) $19.95 Smooth as a creamy after dinner mint, cool as your favorite lager on a hot Saturday afternoon, fresh as a mountain stream. Buckle sit in the background unobtrusively until those quiet moments between conversations when they reach out and win you over with their hypnotic beats and curvaceous jazz currents. Buckle don't demand, they wait to be appreciated. This first outing, for New Loungehead member Godfrey de Grut and former Rodger Fox Big Band member Chris White and friends, deserves to be discovered. Cut Lips should become standard fare around the caffeine traps and lizard lounges with its jazzy ambient grooves. The album billed as "sneaky beats and twisted jazz flavors" is a great conversation warmer, perfect for early evening ice breaking or late night chilling out when you just want to lay back and let the grooves wash over you. The only frustration I find with the 33 minute specially priced ($19.95) mini disc is its length. Just as you begin to disappear into the groove its over and you want more. No, demand more. The only option is play it again and again. The album produced at Scoop de Loop - the boutique studios of Neil Hannan and Jacqui FitzGerald in Auckland's Mt Eden - features the creative, harmonious, even sensual sounds of soprano and tenor saxophonists White and de Grut who also handle percussion. The warm sound of de Grut's Fender Rhodes brings a beautiful cohesion and spacey atmosphere, rounded out with guests Graham Cope on drums. Glenn 'Chip' Matthews on bass and Neil Watson on guitar. Blue Train's Alan Brown adds his Fender Rhodes on Chrisalis and piano on Wax Bouncing. Tony Hopkins plays drums on Chrisalis. This five track experience in extended and sophisticated grooves includes the spacious and spacey 8 minute long Cm9 and the 9 minute Wax Bouncing. Javelin introduces cross rhythms and talking brass and the final track 30 Dirty shuffles along in a mesmerising way rounding out a thoroughly enjoyable and affordable listen. Easy laid back, stylish, sophisticated, mature jazz that doesn't shout "jazz" at you but eases you back and sneaks up on you. There's no urgency - this album is made for repeat listens. Like the peacock-feathers-on-zebra-skin cover suggests it's memorable magic. Relax, unbuckle and enjoy Buckle - Keith Newman or order merchandise The Scoop de Loop current artists catalogue

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