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During the last 20 years, the band has consistently produced record after record of amazing music, all easily identifiable as uniquely Cornershop. [...]once Tjinder started talking about developing and running a record label of his own (Ample Play Records; ample play.co.uk)-specifically, doing everything yourself or asking your friends to teach you-my worries were eased. Justin Hoenke is a human being who has worked in public libraries all over the U.S. and is now based in Wellington, New Zealand, where he works as a team leader of libraries and community spaces for the Wellington City Libraries.

Originally created in France, the children's programme, first broadcast by the BBC in 1965, quickly acquired a cult following. Fans commended its psychedelic animation and the bone-dry, suggestive voice-over of Eric Thompson (actress Emma Thompson's dad), which lent it unintended druggy undertones. [Tjinder Singh] has children himself now. 'My two boys [aged two and seven] watched the original but aren't interested. They're more into [Channel 5's] Peppa Pig , which is brilliant. It's an underrated gem.'

With this kind of wind-up, Tjinder Singh, Cornershop's singer/ mastermind, could easily have cashed in with another sample-rific, world- beat-drenched album like his band's 1997 breakthrough, \"When I Was Born for the Seventh Time,\" and its hit, \"Brimful of Asha.\" Instead of pulling out the tablas and the bhangra samples, however, Singh said he opted for more rock, because he wanted to use an \"actual guitar and a bass as well to show our development.\" \"We didn't really want to go into this album with a set agenda,\" Singh said, calling from a tour stop in Las Vegas, where Cornershop was opening for Oasis. \"We just wanted to do an album with lots of different tracks on it, doing something that feels good. We don't really do much analysis. We leave that for other people to do.\" Cornershop mirrors Singh's interests, though the whole group is meticulous about creating the music. Singh feels it is important to get the music correct now, because he isn't sure how much longer musicians will use turntables and old-school mixers to create the aural collages he enjoys.

\"It's good that bass is finally back in the songs, since it adds necessary bottom end,\" vocalist-multi-instrumentalist Tjinder Singh said in a call from Las Vegas. \"The reason the bass was eliminated in the first place was so there would be one less element in common with everyone else. But after I thought about it, I realized that no one else sounds like Cornershop anyway.\" Cornershop, which formed in 1993, morphed quickly from an amateurish, ragged act to a precise, quirky group. The band's first album, 1994's \"Hold on It Hurts,\" brims with exuberance and social commentary. But what the disc lacked in direction was made up for in promise, and it attracted the attention of world-music-loving David Byrne, who signed the band to his label Luaka Bop in 1995. \"There are some glimmers of hope out there, like White Stripes and Moldy Peaches,\" Singh said. \"And, of course, there is Cornershop.\"

Next up was Staging The Plaguing Of The Raised Platform - a highlight from the new album Handcream For A Generation - and it was the first chance Tjinder Singh had to sing us some vocals. The strangest thing, though, was that a band so obviously upbeatand funky can have a frontman as painfully shy as Singh. His vocals were spot on, but on the rare occasion he turned to face the audience and speak, it was never to say more than a muttered \"cheers\".

They wouldn't get away with it if their music weren't so good. It's hard to describe what Cornershop sound like: forget that Sugababes soundclash single ('Freak Like Me'); Cornershop sound like a crafty producer has woven together Sly Stone, Marc Bolan and Lee Perry, added a dash of Bollywood spice and asked Beck to do the remix. The band drift onstage at the Shepherd's Bush Empire to the strains of ' Heavy Soul', their tribute to Southern-fried soul, featuring singer Otis Clay, looking as if they would rather be anywhere else. But hold on, where is Clay? He's on the backing tape along with the other samples, loops and scratches Cornershop don't recreate live. This is a shame; you expect it from lesser bands but Cornershop ought to play as much as possible because their brand of subcontinental funk is so infectious.

TJINDER SINGH and Ben Ayers may have received plaudits for their Handcream For A Generation album, but while the studio can hide blemishes, a live set is always going to show up any faults.

FIVE years ago, Cornershop enjoyed popular and critical acclaim for their fusion of political pop, funk, hip-hop and Asian vibes, with a number one single, Brimful of Asha, and a Mercury Music Prize nomination. The stress of worldwide success, though, led songwriter Tjinder Singh to split the band.

With a social conscience and a wicked sense of fun, [Tjinder Singh] and guitarist Ben Ayres take a short-attention-span-friendly trip through ever-shifting soundscapes dotted with such Punjabi staples as sitar and tabla, along with squiggly electronica, vampy glam- rock, funk riffs, dub reggae, soul grooves, and more. There's even sprawling psychedelia on the 14-minute \"Spectral Mornings,\" featuring Oasis Noel Gallagher on guitar. Although these lush tracks may at any instant recall Booker T., the Velvet Underground, XTC, T.

Cornershop proved a rare example of a band taking punk's \"anyone can do it\" ethos (which they traced back to Victorian seizer of art's means of production, William Morris) not as an invitation to permanent incoherent amateurism, but as an opportunity for studied self-improvement. By the third album, I Was Born for the 7th Time (1997), and the next year's smash single, \"Brimful of Asha\", [Tjinder Singh] had become a self-sufficient producer of multicultural funk. The mostly tremendous upcoming album, Handcream for a Generation, reinforces these lessons: it is the hopeful sound of one Britain under a groove.