Here's a band that I've been madly in lust with for a good number of years. My love affair with the Herbaliser started back when I worked in a toy shop, living a dead-end life in community college, and loving every minute of it. I borrowed (and never managed to return) a CD from an amigo of mine (Sorry, Paul), which was a compilation of slick, chillable tracks from the ninjatune label by the name of 'Funkungfusion'. Said friend, himself, only bought the CD because the cover was a picture of a gundam model covered in white paint - best buy he ever made, in my self-centered eyes.On this album, amidst a huge and beautiful tapestry of amazing musics was a single track, called "Mrs. Chombee Takes the Plunge", by the band, "The Herbaliser" - remixed by DJ Food. It was a slow, acid jazz piece with a beautiful piano line and some etherial twinkly bells and strings - I was mesmerized, and that song became probably my all-time favorite song in a matter of days of re-listening over and over again.Well, it was, at that time, a very difficult task for me to find anything even remotely related to The Herbaliser, except for a few tracks that I admittedly downloaded LTL off of the interwebs in my halcyon days. A curious mix of hot jazzy tracks, and wordy hip-hop (Which at the time really turned me off). I love instrumentals, though, and by god, did the Herbaliser have instrumentals - I was so enamored with their jazzy interludes, that I put 'Blow Your Headphones' at the top of my Christmas list the following year, and since have also managed to net myself 'Something Wicked', and their more recent release, 'Take London' - all three of which sit nicely in order in my CD changer in the car.Since I've aged and my outlook on life has altered since moving to Japan, like a stinky sharp cheddar, I've also learned to appreciate old-skool, pure hip-hop, as it was meant to be before being tainted by the touch of sub-American gangsta-rap culture. I dig it. In a huge way - they are consistently one of my favorite bands, and although I will spend weeks, nay months without listening to one of their albums on my playlist, I always come back for more.It's all about staying power.