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Goodbye Swingtime by the Matthew Herbert Big Band

If you haven't already come across this record, you could be forgiven if your thoughts at the moment are taking the Chattanooga Choo Choo into the land of Count Basie. "Big Band" is not a fashionable phrase to use to describe your hip and happening beat combo, with good reason - can you imagine what the Girls Aloud Big Band might sound like? Unhappily, we can, so you'll have to excuse us while we sink another bottle of tequila and embark on a melancholy diatribe about how swing is dead and they don't make 'em like they used to.

Ah, but there's no need, because here's the former Dr Rockit to administer an amp of epi and charge to 300. In amongst a flock of Jamie Cullums, Kate Meluas and Robbie Williamses keen to hijack the traditional idea of a big band, yer man Herbert is doing something new with the idea. Good news in our book. Give that man a pie.

What seems to have happened here is that Herbert wrote some tunes, then some other geezer arranged them for swing band and recorded them at Abbey Road using top-notch musicians of the sort who might wear bow ties to work. So far so good, but a bit high-falutin' - not a great deal there for your average pie lover. Maybe if you were into canapes.

Happily, though, Mr Herbert was then given the master tapes back, and he spliced and diced some of them into his sampler. The result is partly the organic result of a load of really good musicians piled into one room, and partly a carefully structured feast of cut-up rhythms and odd noises.

There are some of the most dreamily marvellous vocal performances ever, right next to the sound of people dropping cash registers or drumming on phone books or something. "Fiction" treats the big band like a record on a scratch DJ's turntable, while standout track "Misprints" does a fairly serious hatchet job on a recording of some piano playing to create the most fantastic driving rhythm track. In short, the normal rules do not apply. In baking terms, this is not pie, it's baked alaska.

The sleeve is a book-bound collection of black cutouts that cunningly overlay onto each other, and the liner notes make for pretty amusing reading on their own. And what's that breathtakingly densely packed type on the CD itself? Oh, of course - it's a list of the books every member of the band was reading while the record was made. Why aren't more albums made with this level of demented detail?

The whole package is very political and it takes a few listens to get the hang of what the hell's going on, which has got to make it a pretty brave record. But now we can't get enough of it here at pie-man towers. A beautiful and thought-provoking record. Mr Herbert, we salute you.

Suggested pie accompaniment to this record: game pie.