Bugbear, joined by producer, auteur and rougueable love Mike Bennett, were back in situ for The Sunday Sync at Soho Radio just the other evening and spoke to the enigmatic Intastella chanteuse and self confessed gobby cow, Stella Grundy, about her new opus ‘Intastella Featuring Jah Wobble: The Rise And Fall Of A Northern Dubstar’. Click on the image above to enjoy this and more in a frothy blend of ace music and chat based around sounds cinematique, the sweet sweet sounds of synchronization. Marvelous music of all manners and modes with a filmic or televisual , provenance. Bugbear’s radio shop window if you will.

Stella Grundy has been shaping her Tracy Star character for some time now. A stage play, an earlier record of electronica and artpop released under her own name, other esoteric happenings and installations across the North and beyond. Ms Star may or may not be an extension of La Grundy her smouldering self, either way she’s a remarkable creation, a swinging, switched on and cerebral 21st century rocknroll casualty. Think Valley of The Dolls, the MDMA Years maybe, except The Doll is calling the shots.

Having hooked up with studio maestro Mike Bennett and former Public Image Ltd bass monolith Jah Wobble, plus other fabulous foils like Verve/Gorillaz guitar genius Nick McCabe and ex Smith and six string miracle worker Craig Gannon, Stella was inspired to rekindle the Intastella brand.

This new album of material by Intastella is a fabulous aural trip. No retro meanderings into the pre baggy indie pop disapora here. Intastella, were always ostensibly a psychedelic band anyway, not a bison hair do/Brutus Gold/ flares and sambas kinda band at all. However the psych just got more psychotic . This album is as dark and dangerous a trip as you could possibly wish for.

A cursory glance at the cast list makes you stop in your tracks before you’ve heard a note. Alongside the aforementioned Bennett (The Fall, Ian Brown, Trojan Records), Wobble, McCabe and Gannon you’ll find former Smiths drummer Mike Joyce, Dr John Cooper Clarke, Dillinger, Simon ‘Ding’ Archer (The Fall, Pixies, PJ Harvey), The Membranes, even Harry Shearer.

The deep, deep dub element ballasting this album wont surprise you with Wobble in tow, but the rich amalgam of electro, glam, indie, prog and psychedelia this intriguing record contains within those monumental bass patterns just might. The Wonderful and Frightening World of Tracy Star has an exotically eclectic soundtrack to suit the troubled but enigmatic protagonist. From bhangra to music concret via gospel it’s all there, in dub.

Mr Bennett was once in-house producer for Trojan, and Wobble was signed to Trojan too… lotsa great filmic Trojan material in the radio show here too….and a Trojan endorsed rocksteady reggae tour de force awaits you on a balmy August night in the CBGBs of London, The Dublin Castle next week…

Saturday 11th August The Dublin Castle

Trojan Records + Pama International + DJ D’Oxman

Click for cheap tickets. London’s premier soul informed rocksteady stylists Pama International are a unique and inspirational outfit you simply have to see live. An amazing smile inducing rubadub delight. No wonder DJs of the caliber of Rodigan and Craig Charles are punishing their recent fabulous 45s, and now the new ‘Love And Austerity’ LP has arrived. Muscle Shoals meets Orange Street and everyone’s a winner. And Dub Vendor veteran D’Oxman at the decks tonight is an amazing bonus as anyone who’s ever caught his tremendous Soho Radio show will know. Dancing shoes required.