Artist:   A Man Called Adam

'Don't mention the 'C' word' laughs Sally Rodgers, the female half of A Man Called Adam when quizzed on their current favourite musical moniker. Contrary to the people who keep phoning up their studio and asking to speak 'to Adam' or the onstage announcer at an MTV gig who introduced them as 'A Band Called Alan', the 'Man' is actually a duo ... and before you ask, the name comes from a Sammy Davis Junior film of the same name, the first blaxploitation film no less.

With a CV that reads like a twisted history of yoof culture, Sally and pensive partner (in rhyme alone, not romance!) Steve Jones are the Fred and Ginger of dance music, having sailed their Balearic boat across oceans of Acid Jazz, nu house, ambient, chill out and now ... wait for it, ragga and country and western.

Yup, they're back with a collection of all their best bits plus some new babies (seven to be exact) and bugger me if they're not re-writing dance music again.

Wandering around their labyrinthine musical brains in 2003 you stumble across memories of ex-film maker Steve bang into Eno and Bill Laswell at the age of 12, spinning electro at sixth form discos before playing accordion on a Brazilian production of Rodgers' in 1987.

Meanwhile, Sally, a native of Redcar had a childhood spent alternately goggling at cabaret acts popping in from her parents Catholic Working Mens clubs and rocking to The Beat when she wasn't on underage scooter runs.

Answering a Melody Maker ad to sing with the 'catchy' The Expresso 7, Rodgers found herself in a studio with Jones and other band member Paul Daley (who left in 1990 to form some act called Leftfield). Signing to Gilles Peterson's Acid Jazz label in 88, the trio turned out classics like Techno Power (recently included on New Yorks seminal So You Think You Know About House? compilation) and by 1990 the band were signed to Big Life, in the Top 40 with Balearic anthem Barefoot In The Head, and their debut album The Apple was in the bag.

The rest of the decade saw them found their free thinking Other label in 1993, release the house classic Que Tal America in 1996, compile the Real Ibiza albums and advertise everything from All Bran to Alco-pops with their music ... and that was all before breakfast!

In 1998 their Duende album cemented their hybrid fanbase of pop, indie, dance and chill out goyens. When Sally explains Duende means 'happy sad' in Spanish, the title makes perfect sense for the strain of joyous melancholy that has been a real state of being for the pair in the past. Beautiful Balearia washing over real songs that made even Sally cry while recording them.

'Making albums is part of our creative life, like a monkey on your back,' reasons Sally. 'We need to be emotionally progressive but this is only our third album in ten years. Then again we love bands like The Blue Nile and Talk Talk who make one every ten years!'Thirteen years in and Sally and Steve have decided to try something more exuberant with their new collection of chansons old and new, All My Favourite, and that's partly down to Stings ex manager Miles Copeland and his infamous annual publishing seminar.

Inviting AMCA, in 2001, to join an eclectic cast of characters including midget pop act Hanson, Carole King, Roger Miller, Bare Naked Ladies and Chris De Burgh, AMCA felt 'on the verge of a big new adventure' spending time in the studio with these accomplished artists. The resulting collaboration with country and western artist Roger Miller (his dad wrote King Of The Road!) Six More Days illustrates just how open-minded dance music can be.

'We started out as a jazz act with no rules. During this album we had a sticker on the wall saying no jazz,' nods Sally. Now the pair are as likely to be influenced by Fridge or the Aphex Twin as by crowd surfing at Ash gigs. Some of the jazz may have gone, for now, but they still opt for a more musical approach than many electronic acts having 'got bored of seeing bands using sequencers' and turning out some exquisitely organic live gigs from San Antonio to Singapore.

All My Favourite, then, is the sound of a buzzy Hackney inner city studio mingling with songs about 'seagulls and shipwrecks and our nearest neighbour the lighthouse keeper,' memories from the duo's Cornish hideaway where they split their recording time.

Self-confessed culture whores, the album also includes a collaboration with the 'Janet Jackson of South Africa', Brenda Fassie, a lady who travelled to Hackney with her diplomatic passport personally endorsed by Nelson Mandela and got on with 'funky white man' Steve -vo-vo and Sally 'I like the way you dance' like a house on fire.

That's the beauty of AMCA, always throwing up a fireworks display of sonic surprises and deviations from the norm. 'Who said country music and ragga don't work,' questions Sally? 'Lets push ourselves and try and be better.' Rounding up over a dozen years of memories, All My Favourite recounts the sunsets, acid house raves, smoky clubs, strobe lights, fields and cows, drum machines, violins, love-ins, tantrums, Bacardi, thunderstorms, haystacks and smiles of 24 hour party people. In an age of synthetic pop and bland ballads it's a breath of fresh air to find people can still write songs lyrically and musically. No-one mixes up township riddims and Eighties hip hop flavours like Sally and Steve on the trailblazing Earth Sings while the hovering, haunting woodwind of Loves Forgotten or acoustic guitar thrum of No Distance confirm their crowns as king and queen of the Balearic beat.

The classics are here too. Sitting pretty alongside the new numbers, the cloudbusting Estelle is guaranteed to fill the darkest room with it's symphony of sunlight and the Latin swing of Yachts will have you whooping 'oh whats this? I know this, it's off that advert for umm...ohh...!!' before tangoing off round your living room like Evita on Ecstasy. The organic hammock house of Techno Powers never leaves DJ Harvey's record box and Café Del Mar and chill out compilations might never have happened if Barefoot In the Head and Easter Song hadn't happened.

The glorious disco stomp of Que Tal America and Stay With Me's funk house both have that mellow magic too, but remind you that Sally and Steve still have a foot on the dancefloor even if the others splashing about on a sun drenched shoreline somewhere.

So when Sally proclaims on Barefoot In the Head 'We are children of the night', you know A Man Called Adam still feel that way and as she sings 'Thank God for second chances', on People Rule, we all thank God for third albums!

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