Toby Tobias - Space Shuffle (2008)

Unleashing his debut album via Radio Slave's Rekids imprint, Toby Tobias serves up fifteen helpings of smooth retro-tinted house. After a brief intro track, Tobias kicks off properly with 'Schoon', which has that 'pages from Ceefax' feel to it. Sounding a tad more upright is 'Who Dunnit?' which combines '80s disco shapes with snappy drums and choppy guitar funk. This goes one step further on the vocally enhanced 'In Your Eyes' which ends up sounding like a slightly more futuristic Glass Candy. Taken as a whole it's fairly difficult trying to determine which tracks have been designed for the dancefloor and which are angled towards home listening: so much of Space Shuffle occupies a district somewhere between those two camps, although 2008 versions of early Tobias emissions 'Dave's Sex Bits' and 'A Close Shave' provide decent examples of more uptempo cuts.