If you believe most of the UK's music press, drum & bass is 'dead' but in fact it's now an established genre of dance music - just like techno, hip hop and house. However, as in all art forms, the fickle fashion followers will have their say and move on. They now have with drum & bass, but as anyone involved with this music knows, the scene is as strong as ever.

Indeed, in 1999 the EZ Rollers have smashed into the national charts with 'Walk This Land', V Recordings have achieved massive global sales with their 'Planet V' compilation, Peshay's diverse album on Island and will surely attract many a new convert and Krust's debut album surfaces on Talkin' Loud this Autumn. However, if there's one name that's going to dominate the drum & bass soapbox this year, then it will surely be Breakbeat Era.

Back in 1997, Roni Size and his Reprazent cohorts took drum & bass to a new level with the styles encapsulated on the award-winning 'New Forms' album, and the potential is certainly there again with this latest line in Bristol bass. Breakbeat Era are Roni Size, DJ Die and songwriter / vocalist Lennie Laws, but it must be stressed that this is not Reprazent mark 2. The floor filling funkiness and dauntless originality that characterise Reprazent still remains; but there's a gritty rawness and sleazy undertone to this new collection of tracks that, coupled with Lennie's vocal presence, gives Breakbeat Era their very own identity.

"It happened purely by accident, like everything," begins Lennie, as she recalls her first meeting with Roni Size and DJ Die. "An old friend of mine happened to be working with them - well, he set up Full Cycle with them at the time - he just introduced us and we went in and made the track there and then." As you all know by now, that track was 'Breakbeat Era' and it originally appeared on Full Cycle's acclaimed 'Music Box' compilation in 1996. Back then, the plucked double bass riff brought a new flava to the music, and with vocals rarely used in drum & bass at the time (especially original lyrics) the track tore through the dance music industry and prompted a string of labels to wave their cheque books around. Independent giants XL claimed the prize; and now, two years on, the world awaits the first Breakbeat Era album, 'Ultra Obscene'.

'Ultra Obscene' is a challenging album - dominated by the urgent, energetic delivery of cuts like 'Rancid', 'Tobestar', 'Our Disease' and 'Sex Change' ("It's about girls who are very good with their tongues," don't you know); while along the way the more melancholic reflections of 'Late Morning', the sinister down beat of 'Animal Machine' and the driving instrumentals of 'Late Morning' and 'Past Life' give the collection a fully rounded feel. This is not just a drum & bass album, but it does take this specialist genre into uncharted territories. With the production skills that Roni and Die are renowned for and the overflowing vocal talent that Lennie so clearly displays, their roles in the production of this album are more than obvious. So rather than dissect that process, I thought a more interesting discovery would be what Roni and Die's singing voices are like! "Do you know, they're actually really good," exclaims Lennie. "Yeah, you should have been there yesterday because Die was giving us a punk version of 'Our Disease'... and Roni can actually sing really lovely. He'll hate me for saying this, but I'd love to do a duet with him!" You can just see it now can't you! And with Roni and Die seemingly partial to flexing the old vocal chords, was Lennie ever tempted to get involved on the engineering side of things? "Yeah, I get involved - I make the tea!" comes the typically frivolous reply. "No. I've pressed return and things like that, but no... God no... not with those two - they'd kill me. They'd probably gnaw the ends of my fingers off. They're very funny themselves as well, because Roni will put something down and then Die will come along - change it a bit, and then Roni will return and change it back. I've never actually seen them argue, but I'm sure they must do at some point. They are like two heads on one body, and with me, it's like three heads. The loyalty between us is so strong, and yet it's unspoken. I know it because some idiot kicked me up the bum at a party recently and Roni just went 'don't kick Lennie' and I was like 'not even my big brother says things like that'!

Most people are in agreement that Breakbeat Era have broken the mould with their individual brand of beats, and now the descriptive tags that we are all guilty of dishing out will be... er... dished. One of my favourites came from Roni Size himself when he described their sound as "punk funk", so I asked Lennie how she herself would describe their sound. "I'm not very good at defining things, but I'd say we we're more 21st century pop than a dance band," she suggests with a serious muso air. "We're a fusion of funk, soul, punk and... wank? Sorry, I had to say that," she sniggers, suggesting that behind the penetrating vocal menace that graces the Breakbeat Era sound is a healthy dose of humour and the all important ability to poke fun at yourself. This outlook is also reflected in the way she responds to the supposed pressures of a hungry mainstream press, who will no doubt be looking for the next 'New Forms' from this outfit. "They can say what they like," she states succinctly. "The pressure's been on for me in different ways - nothing to do with the media. That's their little problem - let them run around biting each other's tails, because we're Breakbeat Era and it really comes down to whether people like listening to us. The pressure's always been on to create really good music, so we don't feel any competition with Reprazent and I'm sure they don't with us. The thing is, what Reprazent achieved was like a stepping stone for us and whatever we learn through playing live and in the studio will go on. So the next Reprazent album is going to be phenomenal - and the next Breakbeat Era album will be better than that. There's this kind of hive... a communal atmosphere about Bristol, and we all use it to our benefit."

For the past six months, the nation's junglist dancefloors have been swaying to a selection of fresh Breakbeat Era cuts - in particular 'Rancid', 'Bulletproof' and the album's awesome title track 'Ultra Obscene'. Curiously enough though, just like the meeting between vocalist and producers, this was a track that was also created purely by chance. "My favourite story is when we were recording 'Life Is My Friend'," recalls Lennie excitedly. "In the middle of that, the computer went funny and sent out all these weird drums and one of the basslines which became 'Ultra Obscene'. I found it so inspiring, and so said 'leave that - leave that there please', because I wasn't really enjoying doing 'Life Is My Friend' at that particular moment. Anyway, out came 'Ultra Obscene', and I was there going 'uum uum uuuuum uum um um um', and after I went away Roni and Die phoned me up going 'you're saying something - we know you are' because they were listening to it over and over again; and so I came in the next morning and went 'yeah, it's Ultra Obscene' and these are the words, and it was like 'YES!'"

'Ultra Obscene' is the single that will be released prior to the album touching down, although a handful of lucky people are already in possession of that track as part of the three limited sampler EPs that have been doing the rounds. Nothing out of the ordinary there you would think but, with the inclusion of each lead song's acappella a new development has emerged in the presentation of drum & bass. Acappellas have always played an important role in the development of dance music, most credibly as a versatile DJ tool, and undoubtedly add an extra dimension to a release. They crop up regularly on house, hip hop and r & b releases; but through the lack of original vocals in drum & bass they have been virtually unheard of in this genre. Until now. "I thought it was a great idea when it was mentioned," remarks Lennie on the subject, "but it was actually Roni's idea. He's a bit of a mastermind when it comes to that. I probably wouldn't have been thinking quite so practically, but when it was put to me I thought it was a brilliant idea. I was chuffed. Roni would want a record he could play with... records now, they aren't always finished are they? People want to be able to do their own versions and I'm right up for that. Someone was saying that it's the first time there's been an acappella [on a drum & bass tune], but it's the first time there's been enough words to warrant it".

With the album about to hit the streets, Breakbeat Era are currently warming up for a worldwide tour which will kick off in earnest this September. However, anyone expecting to see Roni and Die on stage manning a bank of machines will be in for a surprise, for now that they've completed the studio work, they've handed the project over to Lennie and her band. "We're a good team, my band," she enthuses with pride. "We've known each other for over ten years, and they're all serious musicians in their own right." The three piece that join Lennie on stage as Breakbeat Era are Liam Duggan on synths and keyboards, Joe Allen on bass and Toby Pascoe on drums; but even with such musical pedigree, wasn't it going to be a difficult process turning a studio based sound into a live band experience?

"As far as I was concerned, it was a piece of wee, but all I did was shout at everybody and tell them to hurry up," begins Lennie with characteristic flippancy. "No, really, the only hard thing was trying to get people to think about it to start with, but we did it in the end. We've just got the simplest set up that you could possibly have, but there was loads of chat about all sorts of technological stuff which I was adamant I wasn't going to do. Toby's such a genius drummer and it seems like such a waste to cover him up; whereas now he's got a couple of triggers on the last three of four songs that just lift the end of the set. It is very tricky and we're still getting our heads round it. Also, if we had thousands of pounds we could do all sorts of things, but in many ways I think 'on a shoestring' is the right way to do it." The live show has already ripped the roof off London's Jazz Cafe, Glastonbury and a number of top European venues; and if you missed their select UK shows this time round, then keep your eyes peeled for further explosive UK dates.

I know it's been said many times before, maybe too many times for it to have any real meaning left, but when I say that Breakbeat Era have taken drum & bass to the next level, it is without exaggeration. 'Ultra Obscene' is an album of raw, emotional music - tense, energetic and with a slight whiff of danger, but it is also, let it not be forgotten, the first full vocal long-player to emerge from today's drum & bass scene - and for that alone it should be applauded. In ten, twenty years time this first Breakbeat Era album will no doubt be considered as one of the most influential albums in dance music's short history. Catch it while it's fresh.