There seems to be something of an early nineties revival going on round here at the moment. While Darkstar Safari are taking care of the indie department, we can now rely on Jayl to take care of things with the dance genre.

In a recent newspaper interview, the American singer and prolific songwriter Stephin Merritt announced that he always went to a bar playing loud thumping disco music to write his songs, simply because he finds it so boring, his only option is to write songs of his own. Perhaps it's just as well that Merritt (probably) hasn't come across Jayl's work, otherwise he would never write another song again.

Immediate comparisons can be made to Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark or perhaps even the little remembered spoof "Take Me to the Fridge (Milky Milky)" by Mr. Strange and The Lactose Brotherhood.

However, while OMD just got lost on the Seven Seas so blue and The Lactose Brotherhood developed unhealthy obsessions with warm milk, Jayl provides intelligent, often angry lyrics against an unrelenting stream of electronica.

Jayl's songs are so full of ideas, both musical and lyrical that you cannot help but listen, enjoy and drink in.

Far from the monosyllablisms of most dance tracks where a couple of phrases of "Can you feel the music" and "shake your body" will do, Jayl's songs are jam packed with words. Hundreds and hundreds of the things.

Take "Sweet Baby Shark" for example. It's a gorgeous song about a nigh-on mythical character: a siren like woman whose description would not be out of place on a Stevie Nicks/Fleetwood Mac album: 'She looks pretty as a peach/She's a mean cool girl/but she's out of my reach.'

The music, however, would be misplaced on such a record. While Jayl sings such mesmerising lyrics as "I remembered to forget her, but her memory wouldn't leave," an incessant electronic beat pervades throughout a melody reminiscent of Pulp's "The Wicker" and a beautiful female vocal accompaniment from Kate Bush-a-like Liz McCoy.

How can one song sound so full to bursting?

But the wordiness and musical imagination don't stop there. Oh no. With the track "Sorcery", Jayl proves himself to be something of a political animal, dreaming of a day when lying politicians, the "sorcerers" of the title, are sent to ground along with "heretics" and those guilty of "conniving and contriving".

This is all part of the "anti-bullshit revolution" - a call to arms to people who hate political corruption. With such sentiments, Jayl joins an army of musicians through the ages who have questioned the status quo. Far from being just another dance act, Jayl may well prove to be the dance equivalent of The Clash or Rage Against the Machine.

Whatever his future, it probably won't involve songs about the seven seas. Or milk. For which we can all be very grateful.

24/06/03 - First published on www.bbc.co.uk/gloucestershire on this link