The first single to be taken from Laroca's forthcoming second album is The Elevator Tester. This sublime slice of downtempo is backed with two remixes from well respected downtempo contemporaries The Second Whorl and Minke.

The long awaited follow up to 2006's Friends In Faraway Places, VALLEY OF THE BEARS delivers a heady mix of lush electronica, world flavours and muted beats, from Laroca.

Rob Pollard & Olly Wakeford make music which is pleasingly impossible to describe – just a quick listen reveals a heady, uplifting mix of cinematic grooves, global beats, chilled moods and exotic funk.

Turntable culture and digital wizardry mix promiscuously with real instruments played live in the studio. Lush electronica and chopped-up 21st century beats fuse effortlessly with exotic gypsy flavours, tango rhythms and timeless Sufi soul. Chilled flutes and muted trumpets flirt wantonly with funky, choppy guitar riffs and brain-busting bass lines. It's music that is one minute reflective and profound - and as playful as a new-born kitten the next.

On Valley of The Bears, Laroca didn't set out to defy the straightjacket of convention, simplistic categorisation and close confinement. It just turned out that way. Influences there are a-plenty, from Massive Attack to Gotan Project with a thousand musical stopovers in between. And yet Laroca still manage to sound like none of them.