TAKE the music out of its natural setting and something dips. At least that's the effect of the this package, despite several listenings.

This is a production that celebrates the phenomenon of northern soul and how a soundscape surging with Philly strings, choice harmonies and driving rhythm is bizarrely, yet, inextricably, entwined with twisting, lithe limbs.

But tuning in to it all - and boy, is there a lot, with 50 tracks on the double disc offering - the lack of perspiration-pulsed walls and the dearth of popped-up, pilled-up spinning, grinning people detracts dolefully from this soul-to-sole music.

These tones demand a sweaty club, a heaving dance-floor. Nevertheless, there are several stand-out stomping tracks such as Gil Scott-Heron's The Bottle, Bessie Banks' Don't You Worry Baby, and The Just Brothers' Sliced Tomatoes, which is a twangy and quirky enough instrumental to have not sounded out of place on either the Pulp Fiction or Reservoir Dogs' soundtracks.

Now there's a thought - a Quentin Tarantino film set in a northern soul dance hall. Hmm, over to you Quent...

Updated: 08:42 Thursday, August 26, 2004