At its best, music makes you want to dance, whether you’re getting into the act of turning the body ballet into a physical reality, or simply a metaphorical one. The brain can dance too, you know. My toes get very busy when they hear something they like.

But music created with the express purpose of dancing to? Well, that’s another thing altogether. There’s so much purpose-built music these days that there’s a whole generation out there (mine, actually) that feels a little disenfranchised, and pining for a time before the currents of popular music split off into various demarcation lines.

A lot of my contemporaries (in age, at least) consider anything “electronic” to be of the “might as well be disco crap” category. While there’s a landfill-worth of electronic dance dross out there, electronic music spans a huge stylistic and aesthetic variety.

Diverted is very electronic (that is, extremely digital-sounding and the only “real” instrument you’ll hear will be some sample that’s been mutilated beyond recognition through various shape-shifting maneouvres), and they’re a group who clearly have their origins in the UK’s breakbeat dance scene.

It’s clear that there’s a dance prerogative here: the slamming drum programs really have one purpose, and that’s booty-shaking. But Diverted have come up with an album that’s quite acceptable on one’s home stereo, too.

Theirs is a snapping, crackling sound that plays on its machine origins, but adds enough textural layerings, sonic surprises and diversions from the typical beat patternings to make it worth a listen.

I prefer scene contemporary Radioactive Man, who keeps to a much more clear-cut template but goes for a fantastically crunchy sound that’s quite splendiferous on a typical Tone reader’s hi-fi. Divert instead opt for variety: they’ll match a full-on breakbeat number with a spooky noirish instrumental or a track with a hectoring rap. ‘Try As You Might’ could almost be Fat Freddys with a touch of David Lynch atmospheres and a female choral section.

They’ve opted for this approach to give their album an added dimension, but the non-dance tracks just tend to reinforce the stomping nature of their typical breakbeat fodder, and the album never feels like more than a random selection of tracks as a result.

A lot better than the batting average, I enjoyed Diverted’s debut. Over the long term, however, I’m expecting it to be but a minor diversion. GARY STEEL

3 Stars