The combo of Wobble and Sharpe may catch the headlines – Sharpe's best known for the big haired jazz pop of Shakatak, and Wobble from his association with Johnny Lydon and PiL – but it's Sean Corby who grabs the attention here. Corby's horns have complemented the likes of Jazz Jamaica and Julie Dexter, and here he takes every opportunity to soar above the fat mattress of sound that Wobble and Sharpe lay down. Although the album kicks off with the Crusaders-like ‘You Make Me Happy’, with another Wobble associate, PJ Higgins laying down a classy vocal, it's the open-ended grooves, like the title track, which give Corby room to shine. Then there's ‘Spanish Place’, with Corby declamatory over Sharpe's glistening Rhodes and a hypnotic, dub-tastic Wobble bass figure. It all builds to the closing jam of ‘Serenades and Serendipity’, where In A Silent Way meets trance dub in a splendidly ambient dreamtime wash of wonder.

Jazzwise spoke to Jah Wobble about the album

Shakatak meets PiL?

Not an obvious combination! But why not? I'm a people person, and Bill (Sharpe) is very affable with a sense of humour so it was a meeting of minds. Some ‘artistes’ can be a bit precious: ‘laptop artists’ can be sensitive souls. But I've always enjoyed working with jazz guys, there's no side to them, like Harry Beckett. Music is their refuge.

There's some serious funk in the Kingdom?

Bill and I, we've got a real shared love of jazz and jazz funk, particularly that Crusaders stuff, and Herbie Hancock's Headhunters. We particularly wanted space to stretch out, especially when you've got some world-class players like Sean (Corby) onboard. I'd been listening to a lot of Art Blakey, and I thought ‘Wouldn’t it be lovely to write a jazz standard?' Which is where something like ‘Kingdom of Fitzrovia’ comes from.

What is it with bass players and playing those repeated themes?

I guess I have all this manic head energy, but I guess I'm also a bit OCD, you know? You can take that mad looping energy and make patterns from it. It's almost meditative. And of course these guys are so good, they can work with those funny time signatures and they don't miss a beat.

You've got lot on at the moment.

I didn't think I did but you're right! There's a volume of poetry, Odds, Sods & Epilogues, in the summer an album with Marconi Union – laptop blokes! – and the Jah Wobble featuring PJ Higgins release; real heavy duty reggae and blues.

You seem very relaxed about it all?

Starting my own label in the late-1990s was the best thing I ever did. It gave me independence. I'm just ploughing my own furrow. Every year I think ‘This is my last.’ But the music keeps coming!