Soundboy Rock

'Soundboy Rock' is a focused collection of 15 songs each flowing into the next like the best kind of homemade mix-tape. Initially they worked separately on the tunes for their fifth studio album - Cato in Spain, in the studio he's dubbed The Sweatbox, Findlay in the space he calls The Tom Tom Club in the basement of his house in Hackney. Musical files were emailed back and forth, the ideas fairly flying out of the pair; 19 tracks, mostly instrumentals, were quickly racked up.

Last August Cato went to New York to record contributions from a dreamteam of rappers and vocalists. Soul queen Angie Stone sat at the piano with the Groove Armada man, chain-smoking and exhaling lyrics over the punchy rhythms of 'Feel The Same As You'. Later, once Cato was back in Europe, Rhymefest - signed to Mark Ronson's label - would add whipsmart hip hop block-party vibes to the pneumatic funk of 'The Girls Say'.

Back in London, Findlay was working with Mutya Buena and hit songwriter Karen Poole. Cato had come across the former Sugarbabe singer via a Chicago-based website from which he sources a lot of his vinyl; he had no idea who she was. Pool, meanwhile, had been put forward as a possible collaborator by Groove Armada's new A&R man. The result: 'Song 4 Mutya', a huge, jump-around pop tune, sure to dominate dancefloors and airwaves all summer.

Back in Spain, Cato invited MAD - the voice on Superstylin', their live MC, present and correct on every Groove Armada album to date - to jam over some records. He came up with the phrase 'Soundboy Rock'; Cato figured it sounded like "a classic reggae chorus". So out came Cato's bass (for 'a proper reggae rumbling bassline'), and in came Hard-Fi's Richard Archer on melodica. Cue the title track, packing a laidback reggae wallop in the middle of the album.

And onwards and upwards rolled the Soundboy buzz... Tony Allen, formerly of Fela Kuti's band and currently featuring in The Good, The Bad And The Queen with Damon Albarn, agreed to chip in, as did Candi Staton. Her gutsy vocal and Allen's bewitching drumming, as well as rolling piano chords and stabs of strings, combine to dazzling effect on the Philly-esque soul classicism of 'Paris'. Candi pops up again on the dancefloor dynamite of 'Love Sweet Sound'.

After many months and miles and emailed mega-files, Findlay joined Cato in Barcelona for six intense weeks of 20-hour days at the end of 2006. More collaborators kept joining the eclectic party: Simon Lord from Simian Mobile Disco added vocals to 'The Things That We Could Share', and Alan Donohoe from The Rakes did the same to the wonderful 'See What You Get' . Welsh-dwelling American Jeb Loy Nichols supplies croony folk-vibes to 'What's Your Version?', while Findlay's Sugardaddy collaborator Tim Hutton supplies the chorus. Buzzed-about newcomer Jack McManus - now with his own record deal - brings spacey vocal ambience to the bleepy textures of 'From The Rooftops' (imagine Erik Satie soundtracking 2001: A Space Odyssey).

But before all that comes 'Get Down'. The first single from 'Soundboy Rock' features the uniquely chewy vocals of Stush, a female MC from London, and a soaring disco-carnival vibe. Its energy and its enthusiasm and its sheer shake-your-tailfeather bounce typify Groove Armada's Year Zero approach to their new album.