With snow falling outside my window, X-Kollective's ‘Electric Flowers' appear like a crocus squeezing out between the frost. The group, comprised of producer/engineer XFile, tabla maestro Aref Durvesh, guitarist Dreadlox Holmes, rapper Alaska and female vocalists Nuwella and Dune, have restored my faith in a despondent Asian scene with their cover alone, which is a real hedonistic picture of a Photoshopped sunflower.

Now, for the music….

The album opens with ‘Snakecharmer' in typical Asian/Underground fashion with some traditional sounds underpinned by some weird futuristic stuff before the bass and drums kick in. Aref Durvesh's opening tabla statement has a profound effect and the track progress nicely with nice beats and bass on a bed of textured melodies and chords. A good start….

The second track is ‘Sugar Pill' and features Dreadlox Holmes's guitar flying all over some more good Xfile production. Female singer Dune provides vocals in good flavour and it's another decent tune to dance to.

Number three is ‘Hypnotic-Headnotic' which is a real good name for an underground track. It has Sophie Serafino and Jaal Leb as guest artists and is a slow flamenco influenced tune. Leb's classical guitar is as sweet as they come and Serafino's violin adds a cherry on top (she's well fit too!!!). Dune adds more vocals but I wasn't really feeling her on this track. Anyone au fait with Ojos De Brujo will really like this tune as it combines traditional Latin mariachi with classical Indian tabla beats.

We get rowdy for number four, with the volume and bass turned up loud for ‘Moody'. It certainly wakes you up with some winding sublows a bed for the dancing guitar riffs of Dreadlox. The Kollective's male rapper Alaska drops some rhymes and isn't great on the verses but the hook is real good, “you say you're moody but I'm moodier than you…”. Wicked underground dance track though, your head will bop.

Number six is the title track and I swear this tune makes me smile every time. It's kinda chilled but fast paced with nice light instrumentation and Nuwella's fleeting vocals all over the rhythms. The bridge and the chorus are beautiful and I can't say anything else but I love everything about this. It's just really happy music made with top drawer production and even though it sometimes snows in April, I feel like it's mid-August when this is on – and why not with a track called ‘Electric Flowers'

Xfile and Aref Durvesh reacquaint for the next track which is called ‘Serene Smile'. More thick bass and tabla-infused beats which you can sway to and take in the quality production. This track is very similar to Visionary Underground's core sounds and that's no surprise given the fact that Durvesh has worked with both. This isn't an amazing track but it's listenable and it's technically constructed pretty well.

‘Take It Ova' is next, with more solid basslines and industrial melodies and beats. Alaska provides more bars in a more rock lead vocalist style. The shouty verses work really well on this rebelliously natured track and it's another solid performance from the Kollective.

The tempo drops right off for ‘The City Belongs To Me', which sees Dune labouring through the verses over Durvesh's beats. Although it sounds kinda tired it really works, and it's a good chill out point on the album after two intense tunes.

After the intermission we return to the bass/tabla combination of Xfile and Durvesh for ‘Flexx'. It speaks volumes that this duo has not become tiresome and although the sounds are no longer fresh you are still engaged. This track in particular is not as furious as previous performances, but the way the track is built up and then reduced is really clever.

We're on track ten and for the first time I can say that there's some instrumentation which doesn't work on the tune. Nuwella's vocal style dominates again on ‘Kaleidoscope', and that makes up for the ill-used distortion guitars. The chorus is a bit annoying though.

‘Ultrastate' comes next and is my second favourite tune on the album. It's another happy moment with Dune finally firing a good vocal performance against the nice Latin influenced guitar sounds. I love the beat from Xfile and again the production quality is flawless.

The last proper track on the album (there's a bonus track) is simply put as really clever. It's Aref Durvesh and Xfile seemingly just being creative and Aref uses his tabla to not only do the beat but also half of the melody. Some of the hits are voxed through a synthesiser for extra effect but as a chill out bit at the end of the album this is the most creative I've heard for a very long time. Think Nitin Sawhney's ‘The Conference' for an idea of how a very rhythmic tool can create the melody for a song.

The bonus track is a remastered rendition of ‘Flow' and is essentially thick Xfile beats and bass with Durvesh sprinkling some extra eastern effects. Alaska is pretty good on this and it's a solid end to a good album.

Anyone who likes Asian dance music will love this and the way it combines some dark beats (‘Serene Smile') with pure positive happy vibes (‘Electric Flowers') makes it all the more tasteful. The essence of what makes so much on here work is Xfile being a technically solid producer, developing sounds rather than picking them from a preset basket. Aref Durvesh, who has worked with nearly all the top Asian underground groups very rarely puts a step wrong and the back up cast of singers and rappers merely add to the flavours. ‘Electric Flowers' gets a strong 8 out of 10!!!!