Planet Funk - Non Zero Sumness

One of the most purely enjoyable and criminally underrated electronic albums of the early 2000s, finally available on vinyl and sounding better than ever. Recorded at Sun Recording Studios in Naples and released in Italy in March 2002 before reaching the rest of Europe the following year, Non Zero Sumness is the debut from Italian quintet Planet Funk, and it announced a group with a gift for melody, atmosphere, and dancefloor momentum that few of their contemporaries could match.

The album opens with "Where Is the Max," an instrumental that doubled as the backbone of "One Step Closer," co-written with Simple Minds' Jim Kerr for their album Cry, before launching into "Chase the Sun," a positive and euphoric club track that remains one of the most immediately infectious pieces of big beat and electronic pop the era produced. From there the album moves through a remarkable range of moods and textures without ever losing its momentum. "All Man's Land" delivers a classic Planet Funk melody and rhythm combination. "The Switch" and "Inside All the People" showcase the band's gift for combining driving electronic production with genuinely emotive vocals. "Under the Rain" is one of the album's absolute peaks, its gorgeous female vocal performance recalling the best of early 1990s rave crossover records while sounding entirely contemporary.

The record also contains a notable Gary Numan co-write on "Who Said," a hidden track in "Rosa Blu" buried after the seven-minute mark of the final listed track, and in its expanded form a bonus track featuring Jim Kerr on vocals. Blending big beat, alternative rock, house, and electronic pop into a seamless and endlessly replayable whole, Non Zero Sumness is the kind of album that reveals something new on every listen. A genuine hidden gem of the era.