Z-Trip has been called the greatest DJ in the world for a long, long time now. He’s been at the turntablism game for nearly a decade, and has all the right friends, and perhaps a few ‘wrong’ ones too.

Still, you can’t be doing something totally wrong to get the likes of Soup from Jurassic 5, Lyrics Born, Aceyalone and Chuck D throughout the course of Shifting Gears. Then there’s Linkin Park’s Chester Bennington, who appears on single “Walking Dead”, which is currently going absolutely gangbusters at American radio.

But, really, it’s nothing compared to “Breakfast Club”, featuring Murs and Supernatural. One of the most ‘natural’ and brilliantly joyful sounding hip-hop songs for quite some time, with a chorus that’s nothing short of cracklingly addictive. It begins with a dedication to hop-hop that makes you happy, and it’s exactly that – it most certainly brings a smile to your dial.

Elsewhere, some of the breaks found on Shifting Gears are nothing short of incredible, but it’s the variety and freshness of this debut album that makes it so damn enjoyable. Wicked guitar breaks filter in between sampled sounds of waves lapping at a beach, and Z-Trip proves with Shifting Gears that with a clever ear and a great sense of sound, music sounds better when it’s crafted with fun as its initial aim.