Labrinth – review

Pop stars become producers, but producers rarely become pop stars. Mark Ronson , for one, has unintentionally demonstrated the pitfalls awaiting studio wizards who step from behind the mixing console to centre-stage, only to find themselves stymied by a debilitating charisma deficit. Labrinth is not troubled by that issue. Having co-written and produced Tinie Tempah's Brit award-winning debut single, Pass Out , two years ago while still in his teens, the Hackney prodigy went on to score two top-five hits of his own after becoming Simon Cowell's first non-talent-show signing in six years. Flanked here by a guitarist and a drummer, he has stage presence to burn. Despite his Tinie collaboration and East End roots, Labrinth is not a product of the grime scene , but a multifaceted studio alchemist. Previewing his debut album, Electronic Earth, he illustrates his musical-magpie tendencies with opener, Sundown, a malevolent throb of electro noir that takes in a snatch of Joni Mitchell's Big Yellow Taxi . Plan B , no stranger to rampant eclecticism, has called Labrinth the Heston Blumenthal of music, and this description is earned by Climb on Board, a gleaming pop-rap fusion buried under a landslide of jungle beats. The beaming Labrinth bounces through his new single Last Time , an R&B/electro workout that suggests Drake fronting the Pet Shop Boys. He morphs into a testifying soul man for Express Yourself , a cover of a slab of 1970s US funk, then closes a short but compelling set with Let the Sun Shine , a blare of Ibiza-friendly euphoria that sounds great in freezing February, and the raucous club banger Earthquake . It is hard to imagine Labrinth being less than ubiquitous in 2012.