Blue Note's unparalleled history as a jazz label tends to obscure the fact that it also excelled at the soulful end of fusion in the 1970s and made major commercial breakthroughs with instrumental house and electronica in the 1990s. Seen in the context of Donald Byrd and St. Germain, this project by Matsuura, a member of the Tokyo DJ-producer collective U.F.O. (United Future Organization) makes a lot of sense. Its dancefloor friendliness is writ large from start to finish: percolating drum loops, chunky bass lines and electronic flak fly around to good effect. The beatmaking is leavened with live playing that is suitably incisive, and some of the flights of rhythmic fancy, which are often quite Reichian-Roninesque in flavour, are ear catching. However, the set starts to decidedly wane when the material leans towards straighter songs, the most disappointing of which is the Grey Reverend-vocalled ‘Hello To The Wind’. In fact, it is the appearance of two other guest singers, Yoshie Nakano and Ed Motta, that adds to the sense of anti-climax, as both of them prove to be far too colourless on separate reprises of Horace Silver's classic ‘Tokyo Blues’. With the whole not quite topping the sum of the frequently rich parts, a 12” single release of the highlights of this record, above all the hearty ‘Jazzstep’, would be welcome.