Compilation Review: ‘This Is How We Roll’ (Keysound Recordings)

This Is How We Roll Keysound Recordings

★★★★☆

From being steamrollered into submission by Keysound’s extra long collusion Keepers of the Light, last year’s forbidden family of dubstep shamen who burrowed further and further into bass recesses until it had to start digging up to see daylight again, This is How We Roll ripostes. Not coming up for air anytime soon either, 14 tracks snatch the incentive of leaving soundsystems and civilisations crumbling, in a rally of blade sharpening, buzzsaw ducking (Mumdance & Logos’ “In Reverse”), sludge-caked, Molotov sipping eliminators.

Dead of night techno mutants lie in wait, searing the sky with a string of bass torpedoes – bro-step, be gone, and post-dubstep, with Moleskin unable to tilt the balance all by himself, is vanquished by rat-a-tat aggressors. These are the dark arts spelt out and spilt by rebel, win-at-any-cost droids who also preach the eerily dogmatic, writing an urban grime-gothic that will hunt you down, even if their bulk seems against them.

The same old story? Though unrepentant, there’s a swagger able to make moves like a mega-weight gentleman thief. Authentic dub samples are hauled into the firing line (Samrai’s “Hear Me Now”), as spots of mischief try and distract you while grunting bass keeps lookout (Visionist’s rascal strings rifling through “Dangerous”). Electro clarification flows from E.m.m.a.’s “Peridot” and Fresh Paul’s “Blaster” smashes planets together while an orchestra chronicles the magnitude. Most of all, it’s a really easy collection to get into, providing instant rushes and razes.

File under: LHF, Chestplate, Tectonic

Album Review: Oliver Schories / ‘Exit’ (der turnbeutel)

Oliver Schories Exit

★★★★☆

Mean mugging his way between house and techno as an unmoved ball of perpetual motion in no mood to give up his box seat, Oliver Schories bristles with attitude and gets twitchy around strangers. The German’s mission across darkened dance floor territories is ideal for when you’re behind the wheel, speeding on adrenaline to an unknown destination just for the hell of it, or clubbing with the lights blown for when your eyes are clamped to your own marching feet.

A quick follow-up to Herzensangelegenheit (Affair of the Heart), basslines loom and plunge as clubbers are packed off with miner’s helmets (“Sunset”). Voices tremble from the shadows, in awe/fear of Schories’ mean front – gruff more than hostile, crossed swords remain a bad idea on what becomes unsettlingly anthemic and wholly metronomic. A recurring pattern is to start off hard-headedly, yet allow for willowy riffs or mellowed hues to loosen defences and let you in on secrets when the time is right. “But Maybe” and the slight trance inflection to “Circles” and the title track explain, though “Go”’s riff goes the other way and burbles with clenched teeth and fists, and “Only Good For Train” roughs you up then spooks you as it hustles down. Binding musings with muscle (“Be” fits the bill for low-slung, critically cool house), Schories is a single-minded slow burner until Exit becomes a game of clubbing over hot coals.

File under: Stefny Winter, Falko Brocksieper, Philip Bader

Album Review: Random Soul / ‘Live for the Moment’ (Random Soul)

Random Soul Live for the Moment

★★★☆☆

House so creamy it should come with a napkin, topped with honeyed soul and pointing you toward pool parties sectioned off by velvet ropes, sing-alongs for you to splash around to, and a cast of bejewelled brass and horns players, pitter-patter percussionists, pukka pianists and pick guitarists acting like personal butlers. It’s funky clubbing of sweetness, sunshine and splendour.

Can any vocal, sand-between-toes house music be too blissful, too optimistic, too in love with life? Should the philanthropy of Random Soul’s Yogi and Husky wear a little thin over 74 minutes, there’s a clue is in the title, so no getting agitated by the Australians’ bright and clean sound that’s not going to upset an attractive, well set formula. Nor is it slick to the point of being full of itself (discounting “Are We” and its gratuitous rock solo), or having the divas, damsels and crooners bringing the quickness (“Mysterious” but one smooth operator undressing you with a microphone), constantly brushing their shoulder.

Plus Random Soul know a kick drum when they see one to underpin the live and crisp terrace sessions, the unit able to shift gears from purring, all loving flock pulling back silk sheets (“Gravity”) to greased cougar. Adding a cheeky gatecrashing with the Digital Underground-style “Time to Funk,” where Joshua Heath tells you to dowhatchulike, it’s a debut that will persuade you to quit your job and board the next plane Oz-wards.

File under: Ananda Project, Raw Artistic Soul, Reel People

Album Review: Bonobo / ‘The North Borders’ (Ninja Tune)

Bonobo The North Borders

★★★★☆

Simon Green broadens an established electronic compass with exceptional composure. Beginning with opening track “First Fires” you may be expecting something reclusive, hardened by the cold or quietly embittered. Instead it’s a balance of the honest — Bonobo dotting the sunshine with blackspots — and the tender and reassuring, burning incense and burbling at one with nature. With an embrace always available within a layout of organic meets electronic via an orchestral-folk double team, Green’s emotional awareness is never grandiose but always provides a crutch to lean on.

At the album’s core, a chime structure links rustically refined club grooves and “Emkay” doing picture postcard two-step for the discerning headphone wearer. Acting as a key cog to a chain of instrumental events, set off in perfect synch from a perfectionist’s tool shed, it makes the folk elements and wooded components intertwine with a satisfying snap through styles. Post-dubstep/après-bass roll “Know You” makes light of the heaviness crowding round it, neo-soul-improver “Antenna” chases butterflies to extend the footloose feeling, and hip-hop conscious instrumentals “Jets” and “Ten Tigers” safeguard a richness that stays limber.

Biting its tongue at noodly or twee, being in touch with on-trend sounds gets to nestling comfortably inside your head while introducing themselves to your soul. Beats to picnic by, for messing about on the river to, or hiding away with – and that’s not to forget the requisite alerting of advertising strategists along the way.

File under: Andreya Triana, Zero dB, Four Tet