I wonder if Lemon Jelly are anyone's favourite band. I mean, there's nothing about them you can take offence to — they're not Sting or Coldplay or one of those bland-but-self-righteous acts — but Jesus said "because you are lukewarm, neither hot nor cold, I am about to spit you out of my mouth". While I wouldn't spit out Lemon Jelly, neither would I want too much of it in my diet. Their music is like their (very good) graphics in having no rough edges and uniform textures. I think of Lemon Jelly like I think of Air: as the kind of music you hear in coffee shops and wine bars (in fact I'm sure I've heard bits of this album in my favourite cafe on Goswell Road).
All of which probably makes you wonder why I bought this. Well the way I remember it is this. It starts with the Mercury Music Prize again — completing a hat-trick of mentions of this prize after the previous two albums, which is a bizarre coincidence since I've got very few albums that have been on the Mercury shortlist (about four or five others, from a quick skim). Anyway, I was staying with Tim in Sheffield watching the award ceremony for the 2003 prize late at night. It wasn't the fact that the album had been shortlisted that impressed me; it was that John Cale was at the ceremony to add his testimonial about Lemon Jelly. Both of us were surprised by that since Cale's uneven output wouldn't mark him out as the kind of musician to appreciate what LJ do. (In fact, this kind of smooth-vibe dance music is much closer to being Tim's kind of thing.) And the video looked good on the TV that night, I remember. I think we might have had a smoke.
I saw the album for £7 in Fopp a few months later and snapped it up. I haven't listened to it very much.
 MusicBrainz entry for this album
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