Munk is the moniker under which Mathias Modica, co-owner of the reliably innovative Gomma label, makes his own music, and The Bird and the Beat is the record which should consolidate his position as one of the leading lights in the modern disco house scene.

The average listener might be passingly familiar with Munk’s almost-hit ‘Live Fast! Die Old!‘ (feat. Asia Argento), but chances are that this record will come as a bit of a pleasant ambush for most people. The early Munk shows (played as a trio) were endearingly amateurish, ramshackle party gigs – reminiscent of a hobby group put together for a friend’s birthday. The Bird and the Beat is a much slicker showcase of what Munk is about, and does a great job at explaining to newcomers what Mr Modica likes to do – which by the sounds of it is party, preferably with sexy European girls who like to sing.

There are a fair few musical love letters to women, both individuals and in general (there are also a dozen female guest vocalists, including Clara Cometti of The Teenagers) – e.g. ‘La Musica’ the heady disco house soundtrack to a Campari-fuelled courtship dance, or ‘No Moon (Over Kuala Lumpur)’, which has half-comprehensible, breathless female vocals (“How you doin’ tonight?”) interspersed with balearic keys and smoother-than-goose-fat bass lines. ‘Tipsy’ is another song in that category, but its coquette ‘Lalala’ vocals and lack of a discernible groove make it come across a tad leightweight.

‘Mis Labios’ (‘My Lips’) ventures coyly into tech house territory, but Modica sprinkles a few samba piano licks onto the glassy surface to make things a bit more interesting. In the last third of this album, things get really interesting: flashes of rock guitar are mixed with a driving techno beat in the brooding ‘Marseile Macheta’, an middle eastern violin samples nestles in among cheesy handclaps in ‘Rue de Rome’ and ‘Dort’ (‘There’) is a slightly baffling, avantgarde sound collage made up of German lyrics about looking behind the metaphorical curtain, electronic bleeps and monotone piano notes.

Evidently, there is a shitload of interesting stuff going on – but the dozens of samples and references are put together with great care, and the beat referred to in the album title still reigns supreme.