Squick Boy Scout Audio ***

Meljoann Ryan describes the music she makes as "wonky r'n'b", and that turns out to be an enticing, occasionally fascinating mix-and-match collage of old-school r'n'b, electronica and wonky hip-hop. What makes Squick such an intriguing listen is not so much the fact that Ryan's a one-off in an Irish sense, but more how she makes perfect melodic sense of the swinging yin and yang of her ingredients. Her fondness for the textures of the pre-Timbaland r'n'b age, for example, makes you wonder why other electronic producers haven't decided to forage in that patch (that said, it may be next up for critical re-evaluation once the boogie revival has played itself out). At her best on tracks such as So Academicand Exit, Ryan shows the smarts to suggest there's a whole lot more to come from this quarter. See meljoann.com

Download tracks: So Academic, Exit