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Monday 17 Now that I have a scanner,
I thought y'all might actually be interested in finding
out what I actually look like.
Saturday 15 I'm really warming to Crane A.K.'s Pink Eyed Pony, which I had hitherto felt was the weakest of the Force Tracks albums I own. It may still be - it's hard to beat either Luomo's Vocal City or MRI's Rhythmogenesis - but I feel like I'm finally 'getting' it. Less lustrous than MRI and not as dysfunctional as Luomo, Crane A.K.'s brand of tech-house is similar to Hakan Lidbo's in that its pleasures are very formal - what grips is the interplay between different parts rather than any emotional dexterity. Tracks hit a groove and sort of stay there, suspended in mid-air and rotating slightly. What can be a bit repetitive
through headphones however surprisingly sounds great through
my hi-fi system, from which I can better discern the music's
uncannily precise balance between the politely booming bass-end
and the floaty, fluffy synth arrangements that drift and meander
over the top, all tied together by the clipped house beats. Actually,
it's a bit unfair to suggest that Pink Eyed Pony is unemotional;
on tracks like "Beyond The Flow" and "Electrothermid"
it's more like observing an alien species whose mind-processes
are entirely different to ours, and trying to discern the emotional
content underlying their strange interactions. Pink Eyed Pony
is the least human of the Force Tracks releases, and while
that makes it quite impenetrable, there's an intriguing element
to it that keeps me coming back.
Friday 14 I'm thinking of that Adorno quote which I can't exactly remember that goes something like: "after Auchswitz, there can be no culture". After the WTC buildings collapsing, it briefly seemed like there could be no pop music criticism. Nothing demotivates me like my own sense of inadequacy of expression, and the sneaking suspicion that I am unable to grasp the enormities of life. The fact that this condition strikes almost exactly a year after I went through a similar crisis only emphasises the sinking feeling that I - or maybe, that we - do not progress. Culture continued post-Auschwitz,
even if maybe it had no right to do so. If writing about
music has seemed almost pathetically insignificant these past
few days, then listening to music has assumed a role of
even more towering importance than before. Updates to follow
shortly.
Friday 07 So, like, I knew that The Neptunes were prolific, but I didn't really know how promiscuously prolific they were until I started looking. And while it's much, much worse than I had expected - they have a truly scary workrate - I'm suddenly enjoying everything I hear. Maybe I'm just getting used to the duo's mercenary impulses, churning out an infinite number of variations around a bankable sound. Possible theory in development: are The Neptunes' tracks the musical equivalent of casual sex? Fun, raunchy and often irresistible, but you wonder if they'll all begin to blur into eachother? Still, while you're often left with the feeling that you need something more lasting, both can keep you coming back regularly. Here's a preview of the most repeatable, scrounged up by yours truly: Ludacris - Fatty Girl P Diddy - Diddy Latrelle - Dirty Girl Janet Jackson - The Who Foxy Brown - Gangsta Boogie Royce Da 5' 9" - You
Can't Touch Me some more good stuff I don't feel like writing about now: Mary J Blige - Steal Away and finally... Britney Spears - I'm A Slave
4 U Funnily enough, Britney turns
out to be nearly as good a muse for the Neptunes as Kelis. That's
no small feat, 'cos this is one of the Neptunes most darkly decrepit
productions. The decaying computer bleeps from "Caught Out
There" are back, as well as a by now familiar shuffling
handclap-driven funk rhythm and an eery, deranged music-box synth
melody. What Britney provides is a crucial sense of context to
the Neptunes' sex-by-numbers sound , her constantly evolving
meta-narrative automatically lifting this above an anonymous
encounter into something rather special. From a marketing perspective,
it's either inspired or it's career suicide, but as Britney says:
"What's practical? What's logical? What the hell! Who cares?"
Has there ever been a sound better than that of the backing strings in Jay-Z's "Girls, Girls, Girls"? But seriously... Jay-Z's new album The Blueprint
is utterly essential, as you should already know if you've read
Ally's
review. Choice download selections for y'all: the swirling
drama of "The Ruler's Back", the stunning funk grind
of "Takeover", the stomping soul blitz of "You
Don't Know", the squawking latin madness of "Hola Hovito",
the sparkling sentimentality of "Song Cry", the haunting
goth-hop of the Eminem-guesting "Renegade", and the
breathtaking plushness of the aforementioned "Girls Girls
Girls". I need to frame my thoughts on this, though...
Sunday 02 Caution: a long-winded discussion about jungle to follow... Is Certificate 18 Records' new Hidden Rooms 03 compilation the drum & bass release of the year? Or even the last couple of years? I don't know - this is the first drum & bass album in quite a while, and then only because I was given it to review. Nor have I attended a jungle night recently, so the jungle revival that I predicted last year, and that has been picked up enthusiastically by the UK dance mags (although not, I should note, due to my influence), is totally passing me by. That said, I can't imagine another release making such a compelling point in favour of the argument that drum & bass is not yet creatively exhausted. The "Certificate 18 style", if there is one, doesn't exist too far outside of drum & bass's current (now permanent?) identity: simple breaks, often variants on a 2-step (but not garage) beat; dirgey, rumbling bass; and unsettling, often rave-inspired synths and sci-fi effects. On the other hand, Certificate 18 also doubles as an experimental breakbeat label putting out more IDM-affiliated artists such as Pilote, and a certain cinematic expansive trickles down into the label's jungle releases, making them stick out from the throng of similar-sounding tracks. Actually, if I could pinpoint the style that Certificate 18 resurrect so lovingly, it's a sound that emerged at some point in '97, when techstep was morphing into the (admittedly not too dissimilar) neurofunk, and a clean-sounding ambient-tinged eeriness began to infect the fomer style's driving darkness. I'm thinking of tracks by Jonny L and Source Direct - particularly the latter's inspired run of singles, "Two Masks", "Call & Response" and "Enemy Lines". Frigid and neurotic to the point of nervous breakdown, these Source Direct tracks took the paranoia of techstep and neurofunk to their logical extreme, combining the former's energy with the latter's flawless sonics. I'd always thought that these singles (later compiled into the mini-album Controlled Developments) might provide the jumping-off point for a fully-fledged exploration into wired neuroses - a sort of dancefloor equivalent to Panacea or Third Eye Foundation - but it's possible that producers could literally go no further without abandoning the dancefloor entirely. Another (personal) touchstone of this era was Hidden Agenda's "Dispatch #2". Originally an unusually enigmatic jazzy jungle group, Hidden Agenda's foray into darker fare on "Dispatch #2" offered a more cinematic approach to techstep than had previously been heard. A compelling dark avant-funk groove spiked with rustling chimes and mournful guitar, the track's slivering bass and pouncing, multi-tiered rhythm are about the closest jungle has come to the severe disorientation of post-Timbaland R&B; a disorientation caused, it's significant to point out, not by the beats themselves, but rather by the jarring spaces between them. While the styles of these tracks have remained in the background compared to the full-frontal assault of recent drum & bass, if anyone has really continued their tradition it's been Klute. On his Total Self EP (on Certificate 18) from '98, Klute emphasised techstep and neurofunk's potential for a sort of pummelling angularity. On "Silent Weapons" the rhythm is alternately stomping and agile, switching between heavy kickdrums and cycling snares with an unsettling precision. I tend to prefer "Hang-Up" though, which has to be about the most inventive straight 2-step track ever: the beats are obsessively nuanced, tweaked and timestretched to give the groove a sort of bouncy springiness, complemented by a heavy-riffing dub bass throb solid enough to follow along as a seperate rhythm, not to mention giving the track a certain skank-derived whimsicality totally at odds with the genre. At once comic and disconcerting, "Hang-Up" seemed to grimly parody locked-groove monotony of the jungle scene while at the same time trumping it in terms of effectiveness. That "Hang-Up" is included on the mixed component of Hidden Rooms 03 and feels right at home is either testament to its quality or a further sign that jungle hasn't changed an awful lot in the last couple of years. It's enough though that a good deal of this enjoyable sub-sub-sub-style of drum & bass has been rounded up in one convenient collection. Of course there are a few missteps - the funkless beats on Polar's "Skydiver" are disconcertingly off-sounding, although in a manner that has, inexplicably, been very popular for the past year or so - but on the whole this is an surprisingly strong compilation, particularly the unmixed first disc. Maybe it's not so suprising though, considering how many of these tracks have been dancefloor classics in the last year or so; Matrix's remix of Klute's "Phone Call", Teebee's "Space Age (Remix)" and Lexis' "Groove Therapy (Photek Mix)" are three prominent examples, and between them they pretty much cover the scope of the sounds on display. Teebee's tracks are generally closer than the others to the harder sound typical of drum & bass clubs, yet somehow his bone-crunching muscularity has none of the numbing pound you'd expect. "Space Age (Remix)" combines tinkling Oriental percussion with searing rave riffs and echoey, disembodied shouts, before slamming in with headbanging beats and furious bongos that combat each other with the precision of a fencing match. "Black Rain" is even better: a quicksilver-yet-viscuous groove featuring brilliantly grainy snares, its toughness is undermined by a curiously emaciated-sounding electro melody and almost wistful synthetic pipes. Uncompromisingly hard yet evocatively ambiguous, it's the best track of its type since Dom & Roland's excellent and underrated Industry album from '98. In the other direction, there's lighter, spacier tracks that seem to draw from both neurofunk's dark ambience and the softer sounds of early "intelligent" jungle. Mainline's "Song 4 Eva" is like LTJ Bukem's "Music" lost in a shadowy hall of mirrors; deceptively light, the lustrous chiming melody intermittently turns woozy and disoriented, like looking in a warped mirror and seeing a grotesque, misshapen caricature of yourself. Similarly, Matrix remix of Klute's "Phone Call" floats a vague, methadoned female vocal murmuring about "a new beginning" over lightning-speed beats and dreamlike sonics, but its sense of relief from the darkness is only fleeting, a momentary respite from contemporary jungle's ongoing obsession with trauma. Perhaps unexpectedly, the tracks that form the core of the Certificate 18 sound are in fact those that go to the greatest lengths to avoid inventiveness. On Klute's "Lost" and Polar's "Innocent" and, best of all, Lexis' "Destination Unknown", the producers take current drum & bass's locked groove formula and reinvent it as a hypnotic motorik-like glide. On all three tracks the simple 2-step beats are chosen deliberately for their repetitive chug, and they attain a hypnotic glide I'd normally associate with the 4/4 pulse on Chain Reaction tracks. Chain Reaction's a good general analogy actually; the secret to these tracks' brilliance are the deep bass swells, rippling layers of sound and shimmering, interlocking texture-riffs that make up the arrangements - think the first track on Porter Rick's self-titled second album sped up to jungle tempos. On the dancefloor, this stuff is captivating, the snail-pace development of the "melodies" (for want of a better word) inciting an irresistable anticipation; I remember one night I felt as if I'd in fact lost time while Polar's "Innocent" was playing. As with Chain Reaction's approach
to techno, the most characteristic C18 tracks draw on the excessive
furrow-browed minimalism of jungle and turn what is usually a
weakness into a strength. Their advanced understanding and employment
of repetition and development - the "changing same"
- doesn't make up for the appalling stuntedness of drum &
bass generally, but it's an apology you'd be foolish not to accept.
Wednesday 29 Thought: While S Club 7's "Don't Stop Moving" and 5ive's "Let's Dance" are both fun tongue-in-cheek disco-pop stompers, their m.o. is decidedly different. "Don't Stop Moving" works because of the malleability of the S Club 7 image/persona - one minute ebullient Monkees pop, the next sleek dancefloor action - that allows for a sort of idealised perfection of every form they tackle. It could be a different pop group each time they commit a song to tape, but that's their strength. There's no room for the personalities of these pot-smokers in the pop songs they perform, and ultimately that's what gives their songs their distinct air of triumphant inevitability. 5ive's strength however is
in fact in the all-conquering force of their (collective) personality.
"Let's Dance" might have an irresistible bassline,
but a large part of that irresistibility is contextual: its appeal
is incomparably increased by the suspicion that only 5ive could
drop such a vacuous Chic-lite stunner while still holding onto
their serious tough-guy stonefaces. In that sense "Let's
Dance" is superior to both "Move On Up" (because
it's still somehow tough) and "If Ya Gettin' Down"
(because the toughness is all by implication). The members
of 5ive aren't interchangable (no matter how many cardboard
props they resort to), which makes their one glorious pop song
per album all the more delightfully contradictory.
Monday 27 And now, at the risk of coming across as tasteless and insensitive, a long-building round-up of at least some of the stuff I've been listening to later, with more to follow...
Royce Da 5' 9" - Boom
Philly's Most Wanted - Cross
The Border/Cross The Border (Remix) Disregarding this seachange in my attitude, this Neptunes production is without doubt their best cut in absolutely ages - a gloriously sunny groove with blocky, choppy drums, lilting guitar and captivating synthetic horns, not to mention Jay-Z all over the place on the remix (though one of the Philly boys sounds shockingly like him anyway). The secret to "Cross The Border" however is its totally addictive male/female call-and-response chorus, "Will you run across the border Mama?/I'll run across the border, Papa!" Absolutely meaningless perhaps, but from the moment I heard this playing from someone's car I couldn't rest until I'd identified it. Yes, it's that addictive. Pop-rap, sure, but who said that was a bad thing?
Bubba Sparks & Timbaland
- Ugly
Ludacris - Area Codes
J Lo - I'm Real (Remix ft.
Ja Rule)
Mariah Carey - Heartbreaker
(MJ Cole Remix)
Kylie Minogue - Can't Get
You Out Of My Head So we get that ascetic bassline,
somewhere between Moroder and morose handbag, strangely enjoyable
nasal sub-Moloko vocals and a defiantly un-anthemic performance
(what? no soaring chorus?). This is almost drone-like in its
tightly defined contours (a sort of suspended animation glide
that's also pure Moroder), albeit with an almost cynically clever
hook, a simple "la la la, la la la la" vocal that's
impossible to shake. Of course this will blow up in the gay clubs,
but I sort of like Kylie being a gay icon just because she's
Kylie, rather than because her marketing people told her that
was the audience to focus on. For now, "Can't Get You Out
Of My Head" has a broader appeal: anyone who enjoys both
kitsch and dancing (and preferably simultaneously) will appreciate
the studied, perfectionist approach taken to both forms here.
I'd really like to say something
about Aaliyah right now, but I'm not going to until I've had
a chance to frame my thoughts properly - if I do. Music, I think
I've developed a pretty good handle on. I've never known and
I still don't know how to respond to death. Needless to say,
it's awful that this has happened.
Sunday 26 I had a quick listen to (Young) Turk's album Young & Thuggin' in Borders earlier today and was surprised by its seeming quality, the best I've heard from the Cash Money camp since BG's awesome "Bounce With Me" from late last year. Seems Mannie Fresh has got some new tricks up his sleeve - this time it's a sort of slow-crawling avant funk style, with the drum machines toned down to a Nelly-style roll and augmented by burbly low-end bass and swirly psychedelic synths. Okay, that makes it sound better than it is, but it still sounds pretty nice, and it substantiates something I'd heard about Cash Money being back on point this year. Or maybe it's just because I haven't bought a Cash Money album in ages and my guard's down... ... I just downloaded "Killa",
and I'm not just imagining the quality - this is fantastic. Slivering
shades of lugubrious synth-tone and hazy, impressionistic drum
programming, plus ragga-flavoured rapping from Turk and Lil'
Wayne.
Friday 24 In my comments on Luomo, I might have given the impression that I don't really like US Garage. Not true. Yes, it is flawed, but any style of music has flaws, and US Garage has more than enough positive qualities to draw my attention, as the Ten Years Of Strictly Rhythm double compilation abundantly demonstrates. Strictly Rhythm have of course always been on the border of garage; often their music has been to muscular or sweltering to really fit the category, with an extreme example being the Uberzone-like acid breaks of Josh Winx's "Higher State Of Consciousness". This is, of course, all to the good, and I can honestly say that's there's not a dud track here. The label's early singles are largely peerless and shockingly modern-sounding: check the hefty, phased-sounding bass thump and frisky snares of The Underground Solution's Loose Joints-sampling "Luv Dancin'", or the fluffy synth chords and rat-a-tat rhythm of Logic's "The Warning". "The Warning" really defines the early garage style - instrumental except for an ominous spoken intro (later sampled on Grooverider's "The Warning"), its fluffy arrangement and unhurried glide still manage to create a vague sense of the spiritual that's directly inherited from the New York underground disco tradition. And yet both "The Warning" and "Luv Dancin'" sound exceedingly fine as dance records, their fertile rhythmic programming and full-sounding lower-ending perfect for a bit of bump 'n' grind. My favourite early track though is Photon Inc's "Generate Power". Photon Inc was a pseudonym for former acid house producer DJ Pierre, and his past comes through in this driving track - a gritty bass riff that itches on the inside of your skin, a delirious loop of interweaving horns, an imperious yet contentless diva exclamation, "POWER!". Emphatically track rather than song, "Generate Power" searches for and locates garage's functionalist core in much the same way as "Acid Tracks" did for house a few years earlier. Of the early releases represented here, only "Can You Feel It" by CLS (aka Todd Terry) goes further, constructing a robotic groove out of slamming oscillator riffs, eerily prescient of rave. On the compilation "Can You Feel It?" segues into Armand Van Helden's "Witch Doktor" from years later, but it makes a lot of sense: Van Helden really picked up the baton from Terry in many ways, keeping open lines of communication with hip hop and crafting a rougher take on garage that would eventually mutate into speed garage in the UK. However it would be remiss
of me to ignore all the classics that the lavel have put forth
since then - the pumping anthemics of Barbara Tucker's tracks
or Ultra Nate's "Free", or the delicate nuances of
Masters At Work, or the absolutely awesome ragga-house hybrid
of Reel 2 Reel's "I Like To Move It" (which presages
Basement Jaxx six years in advance), or anything Michael Moog
is involved with - the gorgeously textured "Real House Music",
or the sweetly sentimental "That Sound". To summarise:
you need this.
Monday 20 And since I mentioned "Never No More", maybe I'll talk about Aaliyah some more. After a week away from Aaliyah's album, I've returned to it able to get a fresh appreciation of its many thrills. The production is fascinating - strangely amateurish sounding and yet incredibly nuanced and bursting with detail (just spotted: what sounds like psychotic seagulls blaring in the back of the rocky "I Can Be"). On the charming ballad "It's Whatever", the clipped beats are pushed way up front while delicate, icy tinkles float in the background, giving the music a bizarre blunt but delicate sensation. I love Aaliyah's singing on this - a soothing coo, moving between notes carefully and gracefully, as if she's gliding through water and doesn't want to make ripples. Aaliyah is best taken a couple of tracks at
a time: brief dips reveal previously ignored tracks in all their
glory. I'm currently listening to "Those Were The Days",
a song that I'd never taken much notice of, and predictably it
sounds excellent: a maze of entrancing sonic details (production
courtesy of Key Beats, of course), a rigorous groove and a pleasantly
languid performance from Aaliyah. "I remember walkin' in
the park, just shootin' the breeze, kissin' in the shade, those
were the days," she sighs, and she slips into character
so easily that I forget about her in a way that I don't
with "We Need A Resolution" (as brilliant as it is)
and I never do with Destiny's Child anymore.
Today's Top Ten 1) Richard Devine - "Anthracite.
T. Vari" 2) Aaliyah - "Never No
More" 3) V/A: Mixed by Louie Vega
- Ten Years Of Strictly Rhythm 4) Destiny's Child - "Bills,
Bills, Bills Part II" 5) So Solid Crew - "21
Seconds" 6) Saint Etienne - "Grovely
Road" 7)Fallout - "Morning After
(Sunrise Mix)" 8) Jadakiss - "Good Girl" 9) Future Bible Heroes - "But
You're So Beautiful" 10) 3rd Core - "Mindless
& Broken (MJ Cole Mix)"
Friday 17 I was honestly shocked by Gareth's comments on the Luomo album, and not just because I expected him to love it. Gareth describes the album as "dry" and "empty" and reckons it could have been made at any time in the last ten years... Gareth, have you listened to the album on headphones yet? Are we even talking about the same album?!? Anyway, it gives me a good excuse to talk about Luomo again, as I was somewhat brief last time. What makes Vladislav Delay in his Luomo guise distinctive from his Force Tracks peers? The consistent use of vocals, obviously. More fundamentally however, Luomo's tracks have a greater emphasis on swing; there's a loose, almost funk-inspired flow rising out of the (gl)itchy syncopation and bumping bass in Delay's work that other micro-house producers (excepting, of course, Herbert) have tended to look past. Maybe we should actually call Luomo micro-garage. These lush, deep and swinging productions owe more to the New York than to Chicago; more to Photon Inc's "Generate Power" than Phuture's "Acid Tracks". It's an inspired move because, as with 2-step's incorporation of the style, Luomo along the way solves US Garage's perennial difficulty: the temptation to get too caught up in the song. Garage regularly loses its impact by concentrating on the lush arrangements and mannered vocals at the expense of the music's dancefloor-focused textural and kinetic properties - what Reynolds calls the "track" elements. By bringing his history as an IDM/glitch producer to the table, Delay also brings an expert understanding of "track" construction. At the same time, by injecting these details into a structured and songful form like garage, he answers the criticism often leveled against glitch - that it's too often just noise with no purpose. Vocalcity puts Delay's IDM skills to good use, hosting a myriad of delightful technical wizardry and miniature soundsculpting grotesqurie: "Class" gradually unravels its sleek, minimal groove, transforming into a deliriously textured kitchen-sink percussive symphony; "Synkro" boasts an impossibly deep bassline that groans under the weight of an endless haze of dub overlays, out of which snippets of vocals and melodic detail rise like bubbles from a swamp. "Tessio" is the album's anthem - an undeniable torch-song that coalesces out of the seemingly random flow of vocal snippets, dub flickers and rhythmic detail that the preceding track "The Right Wing" collapses into; actually with its brisk pulse "Tessio" is the most conventionally house-like of the tracks on the album, but it never manages to sound anything more than skeletal and precariously constructed, threatening to shatter into pieces as soon as it gets too confident. In combining IDM production chops with garage's songfulness and lush beauty, Luomo strikes me as a successor to Arthur Russell - the dub-entranced art-rock composer who's best work was actually Loft-style underground disco - "Is It All Over My Face?", "Go Bang", "Let's Go Swimming" etc. Like Delay, Russell was appreciated both in critical circles for his "serious" music and in clubs for his disco tracks, and both producers bring to the latter style a sort of "avant-groove" sensibility, stretching it as far into abstraction as technology and/or dancefloor servicability will allow. Really the comparison works best however in referring to their so-wrong-it's-right sounding multi-tendrilled grooves. My current favourite example is Vocalcity's final track "She-Center", where tense, mnemonic acid squiggles rub up against a compulsively fluttering rhythm track. All the off-kilter hits and micro-hesitations that make garage so sexy are pushed right up the front, with added Matmos-style gloopy glitch loops for good measure, while the kickdrum is mixed further and further back into the mix, until eventually its presence can only be inferred by the elaborate rhythmic support structure that somehow effortlessly carries the groove anyway, like Warner Bros. cartoon characters running off a cliff and not falling because they haven't looked down yet. So, yeah, what I'm saying is,
"Gareth, listen on headphones."
Sunday 12 Emerging critical consensus re The Hot Shots II: the album is worthy because it signals a return to the relatively straight-forward "stoner epic with funky rhythm" aesthetic of "Dry The Rain" - see the blissful chant-along "Dragon", the anthemic chorus of "Quiet", the all-embracing whimsy of "Eclipse". This explanation of the album's greatness is nice enough, except for the fact that it is completely incorrect. In fact the secret to The Hot Shots II's success is not its resurrection of the Champion Versions sound, as fine as the aforementioned tracks undoubtedly are, but rather its acknowledgement of the legacy of the best of the three EPs - Los Amigos Del Bandidos and its taste for intriguing avant-pop. That legacy is continued here with the crisp fullness of "Squares", the resonant chant vocals on "Al Sharp", the dense, waterlogged uneasiness of "Life". "Life" in particular, with its rickety percussion, restrained drama and final climactic release is a brilliant example of the boys at their best. These songs sound unlikely, an unlikeliness that has always characterised the group's most interesting work. At the same time they're tempered by a sense of coherence and structure that, without compromising the music, prevents it from being as impenetrable as The Beta Band was to so many. In the face of such work, the folk + hip hop beats equation of their more commonly heralded work sounds like a slight backwards step, if a forgivable and enjoyable one. They should break out more often though; my two favourite tracks on The Hot Shots II are actually the two which stretch this blueprint the furthest. On "Gone" the band forsake the rhythms and create a gorgeously hushed ballad, just chiming guitars, a morose bassline and eerie vocals. In contrast "Broke" sees the band intensify the rhythmic attack, reducing the melody to a spectral haze of atmospherics and pulsating bass, and allowing the fractured beats to share centrestage with the quite pop-minded vocals. It's these sorts of connections that I appreciate the band for making (and they are, thankfully, different connections all the time), and that make The Hot Shots II such a good album. PS. I'm not writing much 'cos
I'm currently stricken with an awful case of tonsellitis which
makes writing painful. But if you're interested my favourite
song right now is Gerling's "Dust Me Selecta" - proof
if any more was needed that house music and Australia were made
for eachother.
Thursday 09 I think I now understand what Josh means when he says that The Beta Band's The Hot Shots II sounds strangely slow. Things are moving along at the same tempos, but whereas on The Three EPs especially the band's rhythms and arrangements reek of laziness (in an enjoyable manner), on the new album everything sounds so crisp and deliberate, so the slowness sounds more intentional, more painstakingly preconceived. I'm really liking the album, though I reckon it could do with a bit more dark drama. Like, the best part about "Squares" is how the silly chorus "Daydream/I fell asleep beneath the flowers" actually doesn't sound silly at all - more nasty and menacing, or furiously scathing of the worldview it represents (I realise I may be the only person who thinks this), or mournful of its impossibility. Reason for major griping: "Won"
is not included as a bonus track on my version of the album,
which is unfair as it is totally mindblowingly good.
Tuesday 07 The Skykicking Mixtape 06/08/01 Side A Side B ...as may be abundantly clear,
not much attention was paid to flow, but I kinda like it... Sunday 05 Oh yeah, and would a truly 'intelligent' drum
& bass duo really include a track like "Lee Perry Part
1" - fiercely mashed clip-clop breaks over a delightfully
skanking reggae groove, thick bass flushes and old reggae vocal
samples intoning mindlessly "bah bah bah baba baba bah!"
for all the world like it was a Stereolab track? The whole thing
is only a few BPM away from "Rockafeller Skank", only
it seems to never get tired. Reggae/dub generally was of course
mined extensively by the jungle community (and now correspondingly
by 2step crews) but it still seems like a rich seam that was
comparatively untapped. Of course, it's probably obvious by now
that if I were a musician my aesthetic would almost definitely
be "[something] + dub".
Nostalgia time: my favourite 'intelligent' jungle/drum & bass album was and is Spring Heel Jack's There Are Strings; it was also possibly the scene's first 'intelligent' album in any self-conscious sense. All the cliches of intelligent drum & bass reside herein - terribly complex breakbeat arrangements, sweeping synthesiser and string arrangements and a generally contemplative vibe. But what's unusual about There Are Strings is what it retained from jungle proper - the breakbeats are often impressively hard-hitting and engaging, and, even better, this album has some of the most amazingly thick, warm dub basslines ever laid over jungle breaks. It's these leftover allegiances to the dancefloor (apparently now thoroughly jettisoned by the duo in favour of abstract minimalism) that distinguish this album from among so many well-meaning but drab peers. The song that manages to outclass all others on There Are Strings (even the gorgeous single "Where Do You Fit In?") is the astounding "Oceola", which is possessed of one of the most inspired takes on the Amen break I've heard. "Oceola" bursts with melodic detail: tinkly piano, a whining guitar riff, oriental gamelan motifs, brief vocal samples, swirling strings and jittery synthesisers all harry and dive at the listener likes flocks of frenzied birds. However, the real focus is on the interplay between the physically impacting bass clusters and the crisp, hyperreal syncopation of the snares (this is up there with FBD Project's "She's So", Size & Die's "11.55" and Omni Trio's "Thru The Vibe" for it's delectably nuanced rhythm). Like a lot of trance, "Oceola" is 'journey' music, but it's not a smooth motorik glide; with its rhythmic crests and valleys and miniature hesitations, its sudden deviations into minimal amen explosions or hushed, haunting ambience, it's closer to a high speed horseriding chase through brackety countryside, or a marble's voyage through a mouse trap factory. What continues to regularly
stun me about so much jungle, particularly from this productive
period in 94-95, is how captivating it still sounds. Using
hyperspeed breaks as an aural flourish may be done-to-death by
now, but when I hear it done right (ie. when the producers focus
on the relationship between the bass and the breaks rather
than merely taking it for granted - maybe the concept of reification
needs to be introduced into breakbeat science) it still sounds
like the music that could change the future. Or maybe it's already
done that.
I've posted my
thoughts on Trick Daddy's "Take It 2 Da House"
at New
York London Paris Munich.
Friday 03 Dr. Dre's Updated West Coast Sound is firing on all cylinders right now - as it has been for the last two years, admittedly. What I love about most Dre-style productions (excepting the ultra-repetitive ones like "Still D.R.E." or Mary J. Blige's "Family Affair", which are lots of fun in an entirely different way) is how POP! they are. I was listening to Eminem's "I'm Back" this morning and for a moment thought it was a Cheiron production. Actually that would be the ultimate way for the Backstreet Boys to wipe out N'Sync forever: bring Dre on board! Actually the second half of The Marshall Mathers LP is bursting with pop gems - see also "Bitch Please II" and "The Drug Ballad". Meanwhile, check for the latest examples of g-funk brilliance these selected tracks from Kurupt's strangely-titled new album, Space Boogie: A Smoke Oddessey; namely "Space Boogie", "The Hardest Motherfucker" and "Bring Back That 'G". Produced by some guy called Fredwreck, these tracks dwell in g-funk's hinterlands, where the music's compulsive flow starts to run into dark vibes and weird sounds a la Timbaland or 2000-model Neptunes. "Space Boogie" reminds me of Outkast's "We Love Deez Hoes" - the same ultra-sharp snares and addictive wah wah melody, interweaving with melodramatic minor key chords and nervous synth oscillations stolen straight from a haunted house computer game, although the chorus ("Fuck a bitch/and fuck you too") disturbs the atmosphere slightly. Eventually the track subsides into "Regulate" style smooth vocals, sending me right back to '94. It is in fact Nate Dogg, though this time he's singing, implausibly, "Throw ya mutherfucking hands up somebody," which in that lovely resonant style of his sounds utterly hilarious. "The Hardest Motherfucker" meanwhile isn't anything like a space boogie; it's closer to lugubrious swamp-funk, rotating between snarling bass guitar and eerie high synths in a menacing grind. What's gripping about this music is how slow it sounds compared to so much contemporary hip hop - it's positively turgid, so defiantly unkinetic it sounds crippled. Precisely because of the thrilling hyperkineticism of so much current R&B and hip hop, this reaction against it sounds marvellous in its wilful perversity. My favourite however is "Bring Back That 'G": this funk is so dirty it's literally caked in mud, complete with lazy handclap percussion, deep deep bass a la LFO at half-speed and a snaky Indian-sounding synth melody. The groove never quite gels (or at least, it gels like your digestive system might gel) but it hardly matters because this is all about the sticky textures. It's not quite as hallucinatory as "Who Ride Wit' Us (Remix)" but it's close enough to suit me. Oh yeah, and it has Snoop to boot. So, go and find these, but
stay away from the single "It's Over Now" - an ill-advised
stab at combining "Hard Knock Life" cheeriness with
Ja Rule's thug-softy tracks. Why?
I am so angry. No-one told me how bloody excellent
Trick Daddy's "Take It 2 Da House" was. This year's
"Shake Ya Ass"? More on this later, of course.
Thursday 02 tracks that might soundtrack a not-very-good-really interpretative dance performance: 1) So Solid Crew - Oh No (Sentimental
Things) Actually, I'm listening to
So Solid Crew's "Woah" right now and wondering why
the hell they haven't released an album for my enjoyment yet.
Foxy Brown - Candy More interesting perhaps is
Foxy. That's deceptive really, 'cos Foxy is interesting precisely
because she seems like such a carbon copy of Lil' Kim. A tad
less rude maybe, but also less disturbingly evocative ("You
should see me in jeans/it's hard to describe" - how inept
is that?). Kim has this whole surreally gross/grossly surreal
thing going for her; Foxy's just the third guest on a trashy-girl-done-(no)-good
episode of Jerry Springer.
Wednesday 01 Judging from the tracklisting, I was greatly afeared that the Stanton Warriors mix cd - The Stanton Sessions - would turn out to be a boring straightahead breakbeat affair with some 2-step tracks tacked on at the end. Happily then, it's excellent - a perfect balance of a number of different approaches, and everything sounds marvelous. What I currently really like appreciate with the Warriors is that they're great gateway artists: I imagine that many people have used them to go from house to uk garage, or from garage to breaks, etc... What they do particularly well in their own tracks, and almost as well with their third-party selections here, is negotiate the differences between styles, finding a common element among the disparate sounds without rendering them homogenous. In that sense Stanton Sessions is the best general summation of breakbeat music(s) (in the broadest sense) since Layo & Bushwacka's Low Life. Maybe better? I'm not particularly in writing a full scale review, but to suffice to say that y'all need to hear: 1) PMT's "Gyromancer" - a panic-attack combination of snapping beats, pulsating bass and coruscating synth work. The best 'typical' breaks track I've heard in ages, although actually it reminds me intensely of Orbital. 2) T.Power's "Runnin", which is surprisingly a vocal 2-step track, only dramatic and a bit scary. The sharp choppiness of the beats and fastidiously ominous bass actually reminds me of Trace's remix of his "Horny Mutant Jazz"... And it's possible that this is the best thing that T.Power's been involved since then. Tech-2-step? 3) Stanton Warriors' "Right
Here" - an absolutely stunning vocal number that fuses UK
Garage with the sort of slowed down quasi-jungle breakbeat soul
that Hospital Records occasionally put out. As usual with the
Stanton's genre-transgressing promiscuity, you can tell that
this is not quite one or the other, but it's impossible to tell
how the two approaches have been combined, or where the seams
meet. This alone has utterly restored my confidence in the duo.
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