Amazon.co.uk Review British hip-hop has never had much of a musical pedigree, held back by an inability to compete with the brutal ghetto tales of from across the Atlantic. Cold Water Music, though, is the work of Aim, aka Mancunian DJ Andy Turner, and he's sidestepped the equation with an effortlessly eclectic album of slick, inventive instrumental hip-hop that guides the genre into uncharted territories. Aim succeeds where other Brit acts like the Herbaliser fail because he's conscious to avoid any hint of cliché. Cold Water Music boasts an eclecticism that's so disorientating that genre flows into genre with barely a hint of abrasion--the edgy inner-city pallor of "True To Hip-Hop", for instance, which smoothly gives way to the pomped-up operatic majesty of "Demonique." It's undoubtedly the collaborations with Aim's label mates that makes the album, though; check the mellow groove of "The Force", featuring Grand Central rappers Q n'C, and you'll agree that even America's big hitters struggle to compare. --Louis Pattison