Format: 2x mixCD
Released: out now
Label: WMTV
Given that there are over 50 tunes spread over this two CD set you'd probably have a hard job justifying the 'Essential' tag in the title. If anytthing, this is 'D&B Comprehensive' - featuring all the biggest underground tunes from the last few months rather than the scene's all time anthems.
The big names are in evidence - Chase & Status with Kano, Dillinja, High Contrast, Die, Fresh, Distorted Minds and Pendulum (well, their 'Showdown' track remixed by Clipz)- but the brutal beats, scratch skills and super-quick mixing mean Hype is the real star here.
With the exception of High Contrast's 'Basement Track', represented here via the new and stripped down Upstairs Downstairs mix, there won't be much the uninitiated will recognise. But as an introduction to the must hear bubbling under contingent - soon to be household names like Hazard, Xample, Vapour, Logistics and Crystal Clear, it's invaluable.
4/5
Saturday 28 February 2009
REVIEW: BOP - SONG ABOUT MY DOG
Format: 12" single
Released: April 6
Label: Med School Music
Glitchy electronica on the more leftfield offshoot of d&b label Hospital, with echoes of Aphex, Boards of Canada and Autechre, only considerbaly warmer and more friendly sounding. You won't be humming it on the way home - oh no, it's much cleverer than that - but as a post-club comedown soundtracks go both tracks are nicely laden with personality.
3&1/2/5
Released: April 6
Label: Med School Music
Glitchy electronica on the more leftfield offshoot of d&b label Hospital, with echoes of Aphex, Boards of Canada and Autechre, only considerbaly warmer and more friendly sounding. You won't be humming it on the way home - oh no, it's much cleverer than that - but as a post-club comedown soundtracks go both tracks are nicely laden with personality.
3&1/2/5
REVIEW: VARIOUS - NASHA RECORDS VOL3
Format: CD Album
Label: Nasha Records
Released: April 2009
While their tunes may have often uased the same tempo templates, acts like the Nasha Records stable, Nitin Sawhney, Talvin Singh and their contemporaries always stood conspicuously to one side of mainstream drum and bass.
But while there are still some slight echoes of the Indian classical music and tabla-heavy percussion that set the Asian Beats scene apart, this third volume of Nasha's catalogue comp is much closer in spirit to current movements in d&b and dubstep.
Sukh Night's 'Knightlife' is a wonderfully terrifying heavyweight bass workout ably equipped to rock the most purist dubstep dancefloor. Likewise the wonky charm of his other offering here, 'Cop Killer', all claustrophic gongs, rave swirls and choppy Bollywood soundtrack snippets. Excellent.
It's a similar affair with The Nasha Experience, who contribute the lion's share of tracks. They manage to retain their Eastern flavourings but harness the power of some proper d&b polyrythmic nastiness too. Again, any of these would sit quite happily in the mix with the latest Clipz or Chase & Status dubplate.
The more quirky moments, like 'Wrong Number' by Gunmaster G9 & Pyarelal and 'City Heat' by Shandy, are probably the best, but throughout Nasha Vol3 there's plenty of good stuff to get your teeth into.
4/5
Label: Nasha Records
Released: April 2009
While their tunes may have often uased the same tempo templates, acts like the Nasha Records stable, Nitin Sawhney, Talvin Singh and their contemporaries always stood conspicuously to one side of mainstream drum and bass.
But while there are still some slight echoes of the Indian classical music and tabla-heavy percussion that set the Asian Beats scene apart, this third volume of Nasha's catalogue comp is much closer in spirit to current movements in d&b and dubstep.
Sukh Night's 'Knightlife' is a wonderfully terrifying heavyweight bass workout ably equipped to rock the most purist dubstep dancefloor. Likewise the wonky charm of his other offering here, 'Cop Killer', all claustrophic gongs, rave swirls and choppy Bollywood soundtrack snippets. Excellent.
It's a similar affair with The Nasha Experience, who contribute the lion's share of tracks. They manage to retain their Eastern flavourings but harness the power of some proper d&b polyrythmic nastiness too. Again, any of these would sit quite happily in the mix with the latest Clipz or Chase & Status dubplate.
The more quirky moments, like 'Wrong Number' by Gunmaster G9 & Pyarelal and 'City Heat' by Shandy, are probably the best, but throughout Nasha Vol3 there's plenty of good stuff to get your teeth into.
4/5
REVIEW: YPPAH - THEY KNOW WHAT GHOST KNOW
Format: CD Album
Label: Ninja Tune
Released: May 18
No, that isn't a spelling mistake. Yppah is a Texan-based Mexican-American producer and musician Joe Corrales Jr, who makes complx but ultra-laid back lounge funk, or even math-funk to borrow the current parlance.
Rockier than his previous Ninja material, 'They Know...' is steeped in live playing - there's everything from live drums and flutes to blazing shoegaze guitar here - the likes of 'The Moon Scene 7' and the LP's title track come over like luxurious jams, the former evoking My Bloody Valentine remixed by DJ Shadow, the latter like the missing link between Spitualized and The Doors, quite possibly with Jimi Hendrix's Experience providing the rhythm section.
There are times, like the first half of 'City Glow', when you feel like you're stuck in a muddy Glastonbury field circa 1995 watching the end of a Ozric Tentacles set. Not much fun, admittedly. This reviewer certainly prefers the sharper, more focussed hip-hop beats that emerge more in the LP's second half.
So although this isn't a uniformly successful album, that doesn't mean there aren't some moments of inspired experimental glory here either.
3/5
Label: Ninja Tune
Released: May 18
No, that isn't a spelling mistake. Yppah is a Texan-based Mexican-American producer and musician Joe Corrales Jr, who makes complx but ultra-laid back lounge funk, or even math-funk to borrow the current parlance.
Rockier than his previous Ninja material, 'They Know...' is steeped in live playing - there's everything from live drums and flutes to blazing shoegaze guitar here - the likes of 'The Moon Scene 7' and the LP's title track come over like luxurious jams, the former evoking My Bloody Valentine remixed by DJ Shadow, the latter like the missing link between Spitualized and The Doors, quite possibly with Jimi Hendrix's Experience providing the rhythm section.
There are times, like the first half of 'City Glow', when you feel like you're stuck in a muddy Glastonbury field circa 1995 watching the end of a Ozric Tentacles set. Not much fun, admittedly. This reviewer certainly prefers the sharper, more focussed hip-hop beats that emerge more in the LP's second half.
So although this isn't a uniformly successful album, that doesn't mean there aren't some moments of inspired experimental glory here either.
3/5
Friday 27 February 2009
Wednesday 25 February 2009
THE TUBES
Not quite sure if this is glam, punk or just plain trashy American metal but whatever you call it it's great with me. I got into this thanks to a dodgy second gen prog band who used to do it as an encore.
I see they (The Tubes...) are back and playing Brixton Academy on June 2.
I'll be impressed if the singer can still make an entrance as audacious as this...
WHITE PUNKS ON DOPE (Whistle Test)
I see they (The Tubes...) are back and playing Brixton Academy on June 2.
I'll be impressed if the singer can still make an entrance as audacious as this...
WHITE PUNKS ON DOPE (Whistle Test)
Saturday 21 February 2009
REVIEW - JUNESEX - SEX IN TIMES OF WAR
Label: Junesex International Airlines
Released: late March/early April
No-one could accuse Berlin-based outfit Junesex of being predictable. Who else, for instance, would include a super-cool deadpan electro cover of Survivor's 'Eye Of The Tiger' on their debut album? Hard to believe this hasn't gone to number one all over Europe already.
But this crew has plenty more to offer besides oddities like this. Their own sound, typified by understated lounge electro and boy/girl vocals, manages to boast much in the way of personality and individualism despite being delivered with a universally removed, too cool for school attitude. Add lyrical matter so heroically devoted to sex it'd make Serge Gainsbourg blush bashfully.
Best of all, perhaps, is the hyper funk of 'Boy With Your Tongue' - imagine Prince if someone slipped speed and Viagra into his cranberry juice before he to took the stage. True originals, get into Junesex before the Hoxton trendies get their vlaws into them. 5/5
Released: late March/early April
No-one could accuse Berlin-based outfit Junesex of being predictable. Who else, for instance, would include a super-cool deadpan electro cover of Survivor's 'Eye Of The Tiger' on their debut album? Hard to believe this hasn't gone to number one all over Europe already.
But this crew has plenty more to offer besides oddities like this. Their own sound, typified by understated lounge electro and boy/girl vocals, manages to boast much in the way of personality and individualism despite being delivered with a universally removed, too cool for school attitude. Add lyrical matter so heroically devoted to sex it'd make Serge Gainsbourg blush bashfully.
Best of all, perhaps, is the hyper funk of 'Boy With Your Tongue' - imagine Prince if someone slipped speed and Viagra into his cranberry juice before he to took the stage. True originals, get into Junesex before the Hoxton trendies get their vlaws into them. 5/5
REVIEW - LE DISCO - TELE MUSIC REMIXED
Label: DJ History
Released: April 6
The words 'bumper package are much overused but in this case there's no other way to describe this 19-strong package of remixes of unreleased 70s French disco gems.
Yes, I know what you're thinking. French disco... Perky, jazzy grooves at a laid back pace and all tailor made for inhaling heavily on an exotic fag while siipping an unfeasibly strong coffee outside a Parisian cafe. That's what I thought, with some cynicism, but as soon as I put it on I was reminded of what a sucker for it I am!
Highlights on CD1 include Toby Tobias' slap bass fest reworking of 'Phanom Rock', luxurious Rhodes piano burbling away behind the surface, LeoZero's congo carnival treatment of 'Baby's Band' and the Unabombers doing 'Music Robot' (just love those cowbells!). CD2 continues in a much similar vein, with equally esteemed names like Pete Herbert (Atlas), Idjut Boys and Prins Thomas doing the do.
Having thought for a while house music had pretty muh had its day, having been superceded by the electro of Justice and the catchy minimal techno of Fedde Le Grand, what a pleasant surprise 'Le Disco' is. Le Disco - c'est tres, tres bon! 4/5
Released: April 6
The words 'bumper package are much overused but in this case there's no other way to describe this 19-strong package of remixes of unreleased 70s French disco gems.
Yes, I know what you're thinking. French disco... Perky, jazzy grooves at a laid back pace and all tailor made for inhaling heavily on an exotic fag while siipping an unfeasibly strong coffee outside a Parisian cafe. That's what I thought, with some cynicism, but as soon as I put it on I was reminded of what a sucker for it I am!
Highlights on CD1 include Toby Tobias' slap bass fest reworking of 'Phanom Rock', luxurious Rhodes piano burbling away behind the surface, LeoZero's congo carnival treatment of 'Baby's Band' and the Unabombers doing 'Music Robot' (just love those cowbells!). CD2 continues in a much similar vein, with equally esteemed names like Pete Herbert (Atlas), Idjut Boys and Prins Thomas doing the do.
Having thought for a while house music had pretty muh had its day, having been superceded by the electro of Justice and the catchy minimal techno of Fedde Le Grand, what a pleasant surprise 'Le Disco' is. Le Disco - c'est tres, tres bon! 4/5
REVIEW: MICKO WESTMORELAND - WAX & WAYNE
Label: Sartorial
Released: April 29
Given that London-based star Westmoreland's last album 'Fabrications' (under the name The Bowling Green) was released on this blogger's own label Spiky, you can take it as read that yours truly is a big, big fan of his quirky, catchy productions.
'Wax & Wayne' is a definite change in direction for Micko, however. It's markedly different to his last two, mainly instrumental albums, and boasts not only all vocal tracks, but also sees the 'Velvet Goldmine' star himself singing. The standard of songwriting is excellent, with echoes of The Smiths, Beck, Bowie, Badly Drawn Boy and all manner of other maverick indie types. The lyrics, always reflective and often introspective too, are touching and unpretentious too.
The LP's best moments, however, are the times when this new style collides with the DIY funkiness of his older music. Single 'Darkness (Closes In)' is a true classic, ultra-catchy with a lilting guitar played off against understated breakbeat funk. Likewise 'Blue Thunder', opening tune 'The Aviator's Dream' and the more exotic sounding 'Apple Of Your Eye', topped off with a bossanova rhythm and sparky trumpet from Sartorial Records boss Terry Edwards (Gallon Drunk/Nick Cave). Heavenly Records' Ed Harcourt - whose band Westmoreland has been known to appear with - also returns the favour by adding electric piano to 'Apple...'
A big shift in creative direction, which probably made a change in name inevitable, but there's plenty of Micko's unmistakable personality and sparkle in evidence here.5/5
Released: April 29
Given that London-based star Westmoreland's last album 'Fabrications' (under the name The Bowling Green) was released on this blogger's own label Spiky, you can take it as read that yours truly is a big, big fan of his quirky, catchy productions.
'Wax & Wayne' is a definite change in direction for Micko, however. It's markedly different to his last two, mainly instrumental albums, and boasts not only all vocal tracks, but also sees the 'Velvet Goldmine' star himself singing. The standard of songwriting is excellent, with echoes of The Smiths, Beck, Bowie, Badly Drawn Boy and all manner of other maverick indie types. The lyrics, always reflective and often introspective too, are touching and unpretentious too.
The LP's best moments, however, are the times when this new style collides with the DIY funkiness of his older music. Single 'Darkness (Closes In)' is a true classic, ultra-catchy with a lilting guitar played off against understated breakbeat funk. Likewise 'Blue Thunder', opening tune 'The Aviator's Dream' and the more exotic sounding 'Apple Of Your Eye', topped off with a bossanova rhythm and sparky trumpet from Sartorial Records boss Terry Edwards (Gallon Drunk/Nick Cave). Heavenly Records' Ed Harcourt - whose band Westmoreland has been known to appear with - also returns the favour by adding electric piano to 'Apple...'
A big shift in creative direction, which probably made a change in name inevitable, but there's plenty of Micko's unmistakable personality and sparkle in evidence here.5/5
REVIEW: RONE - SPANISH BREAKFAST
Label: Infine Music
Released: late March/early April
It's difficult when you get sent an album that's a pleasant enough listen but ultimately leaves you cold. That's what Parisian producer Rone has come up with on 'Spanish Breakfast'.
It sounds like 'Spanners'-era Black Dog, but while that album is one of this blogger's favourites, a lot has happened in the (more than) decade since that came out. As such, while there's not much to criticise about its impeccably honed drum machines and lithe, economic electronic programming, it ultimately fails to engage on any emotional level or bring anything new to the creative table.
Admittedly, there are some out there who probably feel that electronica stopped being great when Warp's 'Artificial Intelligence' series finished in the mid-90s. This is perfect for them, but for the rest of us it's sure to sound nice but a little dated. 2/5
Released: late March/early April
It's difficult when you get sent an album that's a pleasant enough listen but ultimately leaves you cold. That's what Parisian producer Rone has come up with on 'Spanish Breakfast'.
It sounds like 'Spanners'-era Black Dog, but while that album is one of this blogger's favourites, a lot has happened in the (more than) decade since that came out. As such, while there's not much to criticise about its impeccably honed drum machines and lithe, economic electronic programming, it ultimately fails to engage on any emotional level or bring anything new to the creative table.
Admittedly, there are some out there who probably feel that electronica stopped being great when Warp's 'Artificial Intelligence' series finished in the mid-90s. This is perfect for them, but for the rest of us it's sure to sound nice but a little dated. 2/5
REVIEW: BOXCUTTER - ARECIBO MESSAGE
Label: Planet Mu
Released: April 2009
When I read that long standing contributor to Mike Paradinas' Planet Mu label Barry Lynn aka Boxcutter had themed his new album around a scientific message sent into space in 1974 I have to confess I was expecting a chinstroking selection of vintage bleeps, sqonks and wibbles that would severely test my patience.
In fact, if this 13 track album evokes any era it's that of 1990-1992, namely the years when hardcore rave ruled the musical roost. Opening two tunes 'Sidetrack' and 'Mya Rave' may have taken dubstep and garage for their templates, but the samples, from jauntily played pianos and choppy breaks to the orgasmic female vocal moans, all have 'old skool' stamped through them like the proverbial stick Brighton rock.
The title track does have a hint of the radio signals and men in white coats its theme suggests, but all built around a satisfyingly vicious Aphex-style bassline and flighty arpeggios. Elsewhere there are more serene moments, like the gentle but groovy 'Spacebass', which sounds like 'Rockit'-era Herbie Hancock duelling with Autechre or Orbital.
Hard to classify beyond the vague 'electronica' tag and immensely varied in mood, this is friendly, smartly put together stuff, certainly more imaginative and engaging than most of its competitors. Almost certainly what Sheldon from 'Big Bang Theory' listens to in his room. 4/5
Released: April 2009
When I read that long standing contributor to Mike Paradinas' Planet Mu label Barry Lynn aka Boxcutter had themed his new album around a scientific message sent into space in 1974 I have to confess I was expecting a chinstroking selection of vintage bleeps, sqonks and wibbles that would severely test my patience.
In fact, if this 13 track album evokes any era it's that of 1990-1992, namely the years when hardcore rave ruled the musical roost. Opening two tunes 'Sidetrack' and 'Mya Rave' may have taken dubstep and garage for their templates, but the samples, from jauntily played pianos and choppy breaks to the orgasmic female vocal moans, all have 'old skool' stamped through them like the proverbial stick Brighton rock.
The title track does have a hint of the radio signals and men in white coats its theme suggests, but all built around a satisfyingly vicious Aphex-style bassline and flighty arpeggios. Elsewhere there are more serene moments, like the gentle but groovy 'Spacebass', which sounds like 'Rockit'-era Herbie Hancock duelling with Autechre or Orbital.
Hard to classify beyond the vague 'electronica' tag and immensely varied in mood, this is friendly, smartly put together stuff, certainly more imaginative and engaging than most of its competitors. Almost certainly what Sheldon from 'Big Bang Theory' listens to in his room. 4/5
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