Grinding out under fluorescent lights there are times when you need a hitch in your step en route to the water cooler and the belief that you are the last hope for the streets. Unagi serves up that fantasy with the sleazy camp of Keepin’ It Eel where the sound is drenched in early 80’s Soul, Funk and Hip Hop that has been chopped up and glued back together like a ransom letter your kid brother would send you over your G.I. Joes. It helps to think of Unagi as the younger sibling to DJ Shadow; where Shadow is studious and often filled with gravitas, Unagi is playful, leaping about the cultural landscape of late night television with tongue firmly implanted in cheek.

Keepin It Eel is an album to laugh with, not that it is one long running joke but in that it drops cultural references faster than you can pick them up and it helps that the album is technically solid and does not play like an amateur mashup. “Roper Golf Pro” sees the unlikely pairing of a jaunty piano line swinging and swaying only to be interrupted by a weepy string line that sounds as if it was lifted from a Hart To Hart TV movie and while that reads like a weak arrangement it actually creates kitschy sort of tension that works. the album is full of those moments like the opening moments of “Condorman’s Revenge” and its overblown sax line dramatically declaring that it owns the song only to have the snap and pop of the bass line send it back to vamping.

Sometimes music needs to be fun and that is exactly what Keepin It Eel is and while it can make you laugh and smile it is by no means just a one shot novelty the album has legs. Unagi has some free tracks over at his website including four from this album for your listening pleasure.  Give it a shot and put a little swing in your swagger.