Reviews

Compilation Review: ‘Grime 2.0’ (Big Dada)

Matt Oliver Leave a Comment

Grime 2.0

★★★☆☆

Not a compilation giving a chance to MCs to run their mouth — and they’d be hard pressed to make words stick here anyhow — it’s the turn of producer overlords and instrumental heavies to pull up and create chaos. From beat one, roughneck enterprise creates pixelated nightmares (Youngstar) raked with too-hot-to-handle bassline gunfire, unwieldy brute force that makes any silence deathly, and realises epic high speed chases (J Beatz) or predatory games of off-future hide and seek. All the while keeping alive a DIY ethic that magnifies the bedroom studio setup to a monstrous scale.

The 2.0 could be code for a form of trap and the creation of a transatlantic bridge, making music for low riders that breathe fire and showing opportunism with Tre Mission putting Rihanna through the blender, Faze Miyake and the bewitching Mr Mitch dropping down low, and TRC giving a footwork shout-out as momentary remission. Despite the unofficially cosmopolitan aspect of the compilation, putting on international acts that vouch for the scene’s expansion, very British mannerisms remain — handclap rhythms (Decibel’s “Bend” sounds almost outdated), faux brass wobbles, synth-played string plucks, percussion sourced from everyday electronics, and the spraying of well-worn dub effects and tubular lasers. There are moments of 8-bar bluster and low-rent grinding that are uninspired, monotonous, uninventive even, but to approach this 35-tracker unprepared or undercooked would be foolish.

File under: Ruff Sqwad, Terror Danjah, Agent X

Album Review: Jimpster / ‘Porchlight and Rockingchairs’ (Freerange)

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Jimpster Porchlight and Rockingchairs

★★★☆☆

Recorded when the morning after has come too soon, Jimpster’s easygoing deep house and soul solutions make enquiries as to the lounge’s opening hours. When engaging space-sprinkled themes, Jamie Odell regularly checks his distance away from the bar and when to engage in the dancefloor’s throng, battling to energise and refresh you.

“Hold My Hand” is for when the techno-schooled nightowl wants to come out and play, mildly more persuasive in telling you to convert your casual head-nod into something more pro-active; while “High Wire” is a soul clap gesturing to go with what feels right – on a groove slickened by knee-weakening keys, it’s all love. The twittering flicker to “Rollergirl” shows Jimpster redirecting the ante as a way of upping it, in a semi-European method that soon drives on, and “Wanting You” may have you fielding questions about spiritual plains, astrophysical relations and whether you dreamt Cassie appearing in the background. The acoustic tapestry of “These Times” meanwhile has the album departing on a solemn note.

There’s no doubt you’ll feel calmed in the company of Jimpster’s sounds moving like champagne suds in a gold-rimmed glass. Said bubbles can compare to a really smooth drink that you can quaff repeatedly, until you realise it might actually be blander than it says on the label, though a more courteous companion you couldn’t ask for.

File under: Audiomontage, SIS, Shur-I-Kan

Album Review: Tone of Arc / ‘The Time Was Right’ (No.19 Music)

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tone of arc the time was right

★★★★☆

Derrick Boyd starts with some real rock ‘n’ roll with not-gone-to-bed-yet swagger. Doing the twangy dance/punk-funk/DIY disco thing that sticks up the dance floor, yet unafraid to grab a keyboard and ensure all eyes are on him as a synth evangelist, the transition from blasé, on-the-road icon to retuning the glam and chasing stardom/stars means timing really is everything.

To make you buy into Boyd and Zoe Presnick’s vision, they impersonate a Parliament-style unit with less pizzazz (though the title track gets close) and more streetwise attitude posting freedom of spirit in its own rough-and-ready way. “Chalk Hill” has got some serious boogie to it, flumed in cigarette smoke and the psychedelic collision “Lost in the Machine” is part freestyled jam, part culmination of everything crashing down around them. The languid performance means seduction is an obvious knock-on, a picture of greasy cool, faded cologne and fumbling groupies where “Where You Belong” murmurs the groggiest of come-ons.

Eighties electro-popper “Goodbye Horses” is a complete wardrobe change that hangs around in cold light, and highlights the restless (or relentless) mood of Boyd always wanting to be into something. Improbably perhaps, it provides substance to when the hazed and bedraggled vocals need back-up. Track by track the vibe looks to settle down, the gruff funk simmered down into a gleam until it becomes born again, notwithstanding the “Hardly Standing” explosion from a shoegaze torpor. An album to get tongues wagging.

File under: Dead Seal, Tussle, Matthew Dear

Album Review: The Black Dog / ‘Tranklements’ (Dust Science)

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The Black Dog Tranklements

★★★☆☆

The Black Dog mark their territory with an hour long warding off of intruders. For bark and bite, the veteran unit’s ambient techno, IDM and interstellar ordinance still doesn’t have to come at you in a blaze of teeth and slobber. The collection of astro bric-a-brac, as if to verify their whereabouts (and title), is intentionally charged with jolting the LP’s flow, but the unannounced changeability of sound does as good a job by itself anyway.

“Atavistic Resurgence” grunts through electro with confrontation on its mind, representative of the sparse shunting together of technology where hard head rests on slender skeleton. Carried on by the blurting “Pray Crash I,” the album is full of heavy loads made nimbler than the naked ear predicts, and primed to dominate venues from only a handful of nuts and bolts, where The Dog’s prestige commands attention even from a position of sat back and scheming. “Internal Collapse” draws you into a game of nerves before the tension tolls, and “Death Bingo” is a duel to see if gravity can be defied.

Any sterility you may experience is just life adrift in the cosmos. Besides, “Cult Mentality” simply strolls as classic deep techno, a loop lieutenant all about business and again, composure with the hint of a scowl. “Hymn for SoYo” is not as smooth, but holds the same ideals, and “First Cut” harks back to bleep-era Sheffield and rolling four-track thunder.

File under: Future Sound of London, Plaid, Dadavistic Orchestra