THE beard is back! A MySpace commentator recently opined that Scroobius Pip's beard is to him as her beehive is to Amy Winehouse. That it looks like Amy's beehive has landed on his chin only makes it more so.

"Well, that's it for me - it's a trademark, I'll have to look into getting it insured now," says the Essex wordsmith ahead of his arrival with beatmaking cohort Dan Le Sac at Mr Kyps on Thursday.

Pip - that's what his mum calls him, although the name is a deliberate misspelling of an Edward Lear poem - started out as a spoken word poet, touring the country in a van playing outside other people's gigs, on street corners, in bars, cafes and town squares. As shaving wasn't really an option, he opted for unrestrained facial fuzz.

"When we get the money for the album we can get the rest of Dan's beard - we've been paying for it in instalments so far!"

But enough of this frippery. For those who haven't yet wrapped their ears around Dan Le Sac vs Scroobius Pip, it wouldn't be overstating the case to acclaim them as the freshest new arrivals on the UK music scene for years.

Their self-styled outsider pop merges poetry, hip-hop, indie rock, folk music and mainstream dance, but is more more difficult to pin down than the jellied eels so beloved of their Essex forebears. Gigs attract parents and kids, breakdancers and trad rockers, the literati and clubbers. Last year's singles The Beat That My Heart Skipped, the Radiohead-sampling A Letter From God To Man and especially the anthemic Thou Shalt Always Kill - with its myth-popping "just a band" motif - have paved the way for a debut album, Angles, in May.

"I haven't got loads of degrees or anything, so if I want to write about a subject I'll go to the library and research it properly.

"It's as much an education for me as about giving the audience something to think about, but you have to have fun with it as well as there's some pretty heavy subject matter in there."

Pip acknowledges the influence of US acts like Saul Williams and Sage Francis, as well as film-maker Vincent Gallo, but is surprised to find American fans haven't heard of them. Is it a bit like the Stones taking blues back home in a more accessible form for white audiences?

"If you say so, but I'm happy for that to happen, what an honour. The thing is, it's not just about being one thing - I come from a village called Stanford-le-Hope in Essex, so I'd soon run out of material if I just rhymed about my home town, and we learn from films that you don't have to tell stories in a straight linear narrative like, say, Craig David does.

"So I'm always going to look for other subjects and whenever I write something I always try it out as a spoken word piece first because Dan makes some amazing sounds, but I don't want my part of it to just rest on those beats - the words have got to earn their keep."

On a recent five-city, seven-date US tour they met up with fellow Essex refugee - and now Dorset coastal dweller - Billy Bragg at the annual new music industry beanfeast, South By South West in Austin, Texas.

"Oh, Billy was great. We were feeling sorry for ourselves at having to do two gigs in a day and he had just finished his third and was off to do his fourth, and he's not a young man! Top bloke though, he invited us to support him which was great.

"The reaction in the States was way beyond what we thought - I think Bush has made such a mess of things that Americans are far more open to questions being raised about their country than ever before. It's a good time for dissent."

And a fine time to catch Dan and Pip, beards and all!