Allow us to introduce you to People & Things - the wonderful new opus from Zeep, aka London-based musicians Nina Miranda and Chris Franck. Together they have crafted a fresh, immediate pop album that dips its elegant toes into every musical pool they have previously explored as Smoke City and Da Lata, as well as embarking into exciting new waters.

Fans of Zeep’s summery debut record (“A signature album of 2007”, according to The Times), will feel immediately at home with the wry, fiendishly catchy escapade of the opening track, “Elasticated Master Peace”, the space-age downtempo rock of “Light Your  Touch”, the tripped-out bossa of “Just A Little Bit”. There is also swooning drama, in the form of the cinematic 'Desert' which tackles the subject of an agonising break-up set against the backdrop of a spaghetti western soundtrack with disco playfulness, as well as 'Hidden Surprises', which focuses on the corrosive effect that greed and ego can play in relationships.

The soaring confidence of a band on peak form is perhaps at its most evident on a daring Brazilian folk rewiring of the Specials’ classic “Ghost Town”, which retains the British pop and Jamaican reggae influences of the original, but, with words rewritten in Portuguese, reapplies its anger and ominousness to inner city tensions in modern-day Rio. Zeep’s “Ghost Town” has already been given the greatest endorsement possible: the enthusiastic backing of The Specials’ Jerry Dammers.

Meanwhile, take a brief study of the lyrics of “People & Things”, and this minimalistic title makes perfect sense: the chief concern is us humans, and our relationship to everything that surrounds us in this crazy and ever-changing world – be it 21st century urban living or, indeed, other people, and the gaps left by their absence. See, for example, the infectious “Heads You Win” (with its conclusion that all will be fine if you can just “keep your head above the clouds”), and the heartbreakingly beautiful “Know More Now”, in which Nina confesses to failings as a youth and her missing of her father, acclaimed Brazilian artist Luiz Aquila – who appears later in the album in spoken word form, opening the incandescent experimental track “Abstrata”.

It all adds up to one of the potential surprises of the year, a record which, like the very best music, defies categorisation, being simultaneously deep, sophisticated, inspiring and light as a feather.  Zeep have performed at festivals and venues around the world including the Queen Elizabeth Hall (London), Womad Festival, Blue Note (Tokyo), and Glastonbury, both as a fabulous five/six piece band and with a more intimate acoustic line-up. “People & Things” live shows will follow soon... expect to hear the word “Zeep” a whole lot more in 2009!

* Nina Miranda and Chris Franck were founding members of Smoke City and Da Lata.They had a huge international hit with Underwater Love (famously used as a soundtrack to a Levi's advert). They have collaborated with world-renowned artists such as Tony Allen, Baaba Maal, Ernest Ranglin, Sly and Robbie, Vieux Farka Touré, Nitin Sawhney, Jah Wobble, Femi Kuti, Bebel Gilberto and more. Their first album as Zeep came out in 2007 (on Far Out Records).