Warning: of the nine tracks here, only two run for less than six minutes, and both of them stretch way past five. You had better be of a patient disposition, and the album may well have been designed on the assumption that you would be listening under the influence of something to help you relax.

In the past, I have never been willing to surrender to that mode, and was a bystander back in the 1960s and early 70s when other people happily wallowed in tracks that lasted for the entire side of a vinyl album. So how come this leopard is prepared to change his spots? Partly, it is down to the beguiling vocal tone of lead singer Dallas Tamaira, which often brings to mind the sublime voice of Aaron Neville on the Neville Brothers' masterwork, Yellow Moon. But that doesn't explain everything because there are times when Dallas takes a back seat and leaves the musicians to carry the weight, notably on the epic Shiverman which could have easily slipped onto the soundtrack of Trainspotting alongside Born Slippy by Underworld.

Anyone who has tuned into Gilles Peterson's unheralded show on BBC Radio 1 will be familiar with Fat Freddy's Drop, the reggae group from Wellington, New Zealand, whose previous album, 2005's Based on a True Story, was a Peterson favourite and voted worldwide album of the year by his listeners. For me, that album was a disappointment, lacking both clear melodies and strong lyric themes, but those problems have been resolved this time around, with the bonus of gorgeous horn arrangements. Calling them a reggae group does not do justice to the range of genres they bring together, but The Raft is a wonderful demonstration of their adventurous use of reggae studio techniques to deliver a song about survival through the challenges that lie ahead. Burning Spear would have been happy to sing with these horns behind him.

As the shortest track, Pull the Catch feels like the most obvious contender to be a single, which it was towards the end of last year. Context is always relevant, and now it sits perfectly as the pivot of the album at track 5; as so often, Tamaira's lyric is poetic and fragmentary but I think his song is about the unconditional commitment made by the singer to defend his family and household.

If you'll forgive this listener's instinct for looking for musical parallels, there are times when 70s' funk groups the Average White Band and War are fondly remembered duringThe Nod, and when the Drop become an imaginary New Orleans street band. Am I making an unwarranted assumption in thinking that the irresistible chorus of the song "something's cooking in the kitchen tonight" could infer rising temperatures in the bedroom?

Either way, Boondigga is a great album. But who is going to play it on the radio? Time to discover Gilles Peterson, 2am every Thursday on Radio 1, and online for the following seven days on the iPlayer.