This is the eagerly-awaited second ECM album by French drummer Manu Katché - his first, the best-selling 'Neighbourhood', was a multiple-prize winner. The album was recorded in New York in January 2007 and features exciting, zestful music energized by Manu's hard-driving drums.

Since Neighbourhood, the quintet has coalesced into a rip-roaring and fully-integrated band: a Polish/Norwegian confederacy of young players with a strong new frontline of trumpeter Mathias Eick and saxophonist Trygve Seim. Its rhythm section remains the powerhouse team of Manu, Marcin Wasilewski and Slawomir Kurkiewicz'

'Playground' features all new repertoire written by Katché - from the ballads "Lo" and "Song for Her" to the funk-inclined up-tempo tunes "So Groovy" and "Clubbing".