Author: Matt Oliver

Album Review: Merky Ace / ‘All or Nothing’ (No Hats No Hoods)

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merky ace all or nothing

★★★★☆

Merky Ace shows absolutely no hint of crossover potential. That’s good news — we don’t want the mainstream polluting and diluting London fire breathers that can name Baauer and Dizzee Rascal as two peers he’s blessed with his go hard or go home pile-drives. No half steppin’ as no breathless motormouth, Ace attacks with wave after wave of clear-swaggin’ one-upping, to some explosive charging of low ends and 808 chomps that low riders will struggle to shift to.

Then again, the slower the better; turning the screw gets speaker nuts and bolts loosened until they’ve shed their cones and spewed their innards. The potential of trap transfers mightily on “Eff Tizzy” and “Bang,” with the ghost of Nancy Sinatra eerily riding shotgun, strapping on insistent loops hollowed from hammer horror. Out of rallying against subtlety, “R.I.P.” is conspicuous for barging through as a drama bringer, and that’s before the frankly ridiculous churner “Know What It Is.”

“Wack” is the snapshot of pure UK fire. Rude Kid’s bassline whips round corners like a Waltzer, causing sparks as percussion jolts and bounces, while the title track unleashes one-liners of essential British humour caught in a synth big freeze (“starting a war with me ain’t wise/like wearing football boots on thin ice”). Though billed as a mixtape, it works on album terms: the running time means you can’t accuse Ace of rambling, who instead picks his spot as marksman in chief.

File under: P Money, B-Illa, Maxsta

Album Review: RP Boo / ‘Legacy’ (Planet Mu)

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rpboo legacy

★★☆☆☆

The way footwork forefather Kavain Space stuffs his sampler, his output should be a multi-speed collage of colour. Tarzan roars, Flash Gordon and Phil Collins adulation, a double helping of Timbaland, Psycho strings Busta Rhymes fans will know well, soundbites from Shogun Assassin and a glut of hip-hop one-liners… yet the reality is that one of the original brains behind the fast and furious/unholy union of hip-hop, booty bass and modern dubstep, defaults on being deft. Drum machine on, samples thrown down, dance floor hijacked.

Boo’s block party booms, chucked onto a bed of bobbling bass and go-go gadget drum triggers, are unceremonious with the scissors and glue. Legacy plays as a juke inverse of Armand van Helden’s Sampleslayer, a crude, in places amateurish-sounding cut and paste of samples and loops vibing for cheap yet familiar thrills. Though long known for such strategies in Chicagoan ghetto assault, structures are built while not entirely bothered whether they win or bust by quality control, at a tempo almost overrunning 4/4 time.

The thrill of sparse hydraulics and drop-it-down-low implications of the super minimal “Red Hot”, produced with a muffle that sounds like you’re outside listening in, isn’t hard to fathom — right place, right time, right on. “Invisibu Boogie” and “Robotbutizm” have a cartoonish element to subdue the screwfaced jacking, and “Sentimental” attempts a slow jam at the given rate of syncopation. Symbolic, in a weird, disorientating, superficial adrenalin rush pushing dance music into a peculiar state of flux.

File under: DJ Spinn, Traxman, Tha Pope

Compilation Review: LTJ Bukem / ‘Bukem in Session’ (Goodlooking)

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bukem-in-session

★★★★☆

Undisputed when it comes to pinpointing pure, effervescent drum ‘n’ bass flow, LTJ Bukem surveys the skies, predicts a long hot summer, starts filling the pool and dispatches a soundtrack of badass wobbles and Amen rollage. The pure sunshine vibin’, riding like a muscle car with a velvet gearbox and revs cruising on a cloud, is a wild fizz of breakbeats and bass completely smoothed out, turning passing city streets into an exhilarating blur. Particularly with a near wholesale void of vocalism going on, bass, whether upright or in boss mode, and melody rippling and surging through jazz steps are all you’ll need to hang onto; while the ease and efficiency of movement is expected from one of ’90s jungle’s most decorated, perhaps the early quick fingeredness and hectic breaks are more of a bonus windfall.

Rich without pandering to any labels of ‘intelligent’ and dismissing ambient aspersions despite its ready-to-unwind recourse, the brass of SoulTec’s “A Need in Me” and Dynamic’s “Highway Patrol” line the streets as a guard of honour while the motorcade bounces on; while immediately after, Pauls T & SG speed through for the most seamless of intersections and complexion changing drive-bys. The curves of the bass do have a habit of swaying into one, but there’s the essence of rolling for you; twinkling and skimming beyond the dance floor, cocktail shakers readied thanks to Dave Owen’s terrace pianist, and Bukem’s own heralded jungle-tekno physical “Atlantis” getting a tremendous re-up from Marky & SPY.

File under: EZ Rollers, Peshay, MC Conrad

Compilation Review: ‘minMAX’ (M_nus)

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minmax

★★★☆☆

“Minimal aesthetic, maximal techno style” is the banner for a 24-track marathon, set to a universal throb, locking heads in a position facing south. You don’t need any more hints that Richie Hawtin’s M_nus imprint isn’t doing things by halves here. One sitting is probably too much weight to bear; pick and choose your piston-perfect procedurals instead.

Tech-house and deep techno pushing through the pain barrier so it can funk just a little, is of a full, proportioned sound, admonishing the skeletal throughout, but pushing in one direction and for the greater part, one dimension. A lot of accepted traits — particularly winding reverb and duskily filtered chord carousels — show a scientific precision, though it’s not a blanket expo for the robotic and artificial. Of course this makes the roguish inserts easier to trace, and although it doesn’t take much to jump from foundations laid by Theorem and Maxime Leffon, and sonar-powered readings clicked into place by Tripmastaz and 4Yo4u, rough-cut rolling from Gaiser’s bit between the teeth “Trashbend” and Jonni Darko striking out on “Close” become precious queue jumpers, with Joran van Pol’s “Faded” and Pots of Gold’s “Rainbows” skulking in the wings.

Lowered, dubby beats by Valentino, relying on strength and persistence rather than much method, share as much of the same family tree as Barem’s more ambient “Limbus,” underlining how a flick of the wrist divides the reticent and those going flat out.

File under: Heartthrob, Matador, Hobo