Author: Matt Oliver

Album Review: Mr Benn / ‘Shake A Leg’ (Nice Up!)

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Mr Benn Shake a Leg

★★★☆☆

You’d hazard a guess that Mr Benn is no good to anyone in the winter months. In fact hibernation may be to the benefit of the Bristol-based conductor, giving himself ample time to store up fair-weather vibes. So when Daisy Dukes and sunglasses make an appearance, the dub/reggae unit frontman homes in on festival season and flatbed floats at a full lick.

Amongst the bouncy, sun-powered partying and instruction to get hips on heavy rotation from gravel-voiced selectors, sassy dancehall instructors, hula contest judges and long-term operators like The Ragga Twins and Top Cat, is a concerted display of social conscience. Making you reflect seems at odds with putting your backbone out, but Benn knows tradition. “No More Guns” as rallied by Tenor Fly and the Peppery-steered “Know Themself,” plus “Stand Up” lead by Nanci Correia — a practical, sweeter opposite — have the pace braking for horns to sound off responsibly while applying a live stage chokehold. A friends close/enemies closer theme (“Shame”) sounds like all concerned have had their fingers burnt, with a little hip-hop/bashment casting Serocee (“Rising Star” showing street level prudence) giving the album a thin slice of variation in its delivery.

Is Benn’s soundsystem different to any other? Well his bass can get murkier than most, liable to twist as it boxes your ears at a traditional skank level. For his energetic and earnest endeavours, the great outdoors awaits.

File under: Dirty Dubsters, Prince Fatty, Wrongtom

Album Review: Laszlo / ‘Level Five Stage One’ (Lydian)

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laszlo level five stage one

★★★☆☆

A mini-album that’s a pick up and play killing of time over a gaming session that involves unhooking the phone and sending the kids to the neighbours, Laszlo leaves fingers clawed and eyes squared on a glitch quest targeting adversaries with boom and doom.

As “Dawn of Locrian” advises you to tread very carefully for the reward of new wave majesty and modem-chewing boom-bap, high and low ends make you jump in a digital cross between hopscotch and limbo. Vibrant synth projections team with rusted nuts and bolts, so “Dragon Quest” unfolds majestically before turning on its screwface, where Laszlo’s fantasy regularly encounters a reconstructed reality telling you not to go counting your chickens. “Final Fantasy” floats with a freedom still struggling to shake off unseen forces, in a cool encapsulation of maximalist contours.

The dungeon mastery isn’t a complete whore for edging around corridors. With “Legend of Lumbar” coveting a robot’s helmet, a burst of funk on “Crazy Cuckoo”, an incongruously bouncy platformer having Laszlo crack a window, goes with “Bass Patch Hunter IV” as niggling in their wiggly, froggy wiles, finding clearer passages through synth shines that take the pressure off the virtual shooter.

Even within eight tracks there’s an intermission/digital drinks break, while “Carousels” is a little under-developed as a promising dream sequence. Definitely room for an expansion pack then, Laszlo registering a reasonable score on the CPU disco high score table.

File under: Slugabed, Fulgeance, Eyes of March

Album Review: Nathan Adams / ‘Audio Therapy’ (Tribe Records)

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Nathan Adams Audio Therapy

★★★★☆

As the UK heatwave looks to dissolve into its usual repetition of wet weekends, golden beach, glistening sea, Latin-zested house and Shisa-smoked soul, softly delivered by Nathan Adams, looks to stay with you a little longer. The London artist could well sing you into a sangria-assisted coma, replacing dance floor hardwood with silk-covered bubbles.

Some of Adams’ aural remedy is middle of the road, beat-for-beat textbook — the inclusion of neo-soul-by-numbers “Don’t Break My Heart” adds to the making of eyelids taking longer and longer to blink. Yet you’d rather be Sunday driven by beat chauffeurs Louie Vega, DJ Spinna and Blaze’s Josh Milan than some uneducated madman. With the soulful, bar house injected with ubiquitous super fluidity that makes for a carnival atmosphere without it ever being too rambunctious, almost as if it’s the designated driver of a Mardi Gras float, the ever approachable, accommodating comforts of organic instrumentation and the studio being set to purr make the sentiments even more genuine. If you feel it’s too floaty, or don’t find “Don’t Stop the Rain” just lovely, remove your unsightly self from the beach, now.

Adams has heart and sincerity on this getaway for two, but finds room for “Fade Away” to inch towards a Donnell Jones sugared swagger, “Melody” doing Omarion, and “Chasing Love”, with its hip-hop soul, semi-conversational game, showing he’s not exclusively a pretty boy. Go get yourself a dose, whether the sun’s blazing or you need some rainy day security.

File under: Terry Hunter, Shaun Escoffrey, Kenny Bobien

Album Review: Kölsch / ‘1977’ (Kompakt)

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kolsch 1977

★★★☆☆

On potentially the biggest EDM LP of the year, Kölsch practises stadium scales as a keyboard lesson warm-up, taking further liberties when the breakdowns to “Bappedekkel” and “Loreley” seem to be played left-handed. If you’re pro chemical reactions under the sun, 1977 is a year you’ll always remember. If you break down the mechanics, it’s just another EDM album from someone who isn’t plastered all over MTV.

This is surely forthcoming, given the Swedish House Mafia/Armin van Buuren-like “All That Matters”, the album’s only vocal track. European rule bakes the LP with a thin cheese crust, giving you a stereotyped cultural appendix to an EDM/trance step-by-step. Reference points are obvious throughout, loading 8-bits many a time, reigniting the spirit of “Strings of Life” on “Der Alte”, though a good piano track will never go out of fashion. Tunnel rusher “Basshund” firms up a Mylo pressure drop, “Zig” & “Loreley” have posters of Xpansions and Southside Spinners on their wall, and “Eiswinter’s” dirt bike bass, the one-time Kölsch swishes about in the gutter, rides dirty to Hervé’s “Better than a BMX.”

Defending Kölsch, his sound is allowed to generate and find a way rather than immediately look for the payoff, making the ensuing pyrotechnics, shall we say, slightly less silicone-based. While swinging the keys to a church of easy access euphoria, it’s a small token to bear in mind when you’ve written him off into the EDM flock.

File under: Gui Boratto, Benny Benassi, Tiësto