DCC: This is RipHop
DEATH COMET CREW
THIS IS RIPHOP
TROUBLEMAN UNLIMITED TMU121
This compilation of various live performances, excerpts from soundtracks, the impossibly rare “At the Marble Bar” EP and unreleased material comes direct to us from 1984 still smoking with dry ice. After his earlier shimmering surprise-hit Disco Pop of Dominatrix and the chill Europhile tones of Ike Yard, Stuart Argabright entered into a satisfyingly alienating engagement with Hip-Hop, veritably the other on his own doorstep. In fact alienation is the watchword with Argabright who seems, though born white in DC, homesick for a “Japan of the mind”. It’s an aesthetic one can also appreciate in the mid-seventies work of Miles Davis, as within the claustrophobic grooves of “Dark Magus” (incidentally recorded live in Tokyo).
"America", used by Nicholas Roeg on the soundtrack for "Insignificance", rides the break from Davy DMX's "One for the Treble" piling upon it tower-block floor upon tower-block floor of random klang, backward-spinning vinyl flurry and snatches of b-movie dialogue causing the ear to travel past each layer of smolten panic like it was an out-of-control elevator. On "Amphipet" the groove picks up momentarily only for one to be hurled into one of those free-dub passages which formed the substance of Mark Stewart and the Mafia's "Learning to Cope with Cowardice." In thrall of Hip-Hop, pining in love with Marley Marl's moronic bass drum juggernaut, with Bambaata's itchy cross-fader finger, with G.L.O.B.E. & Whiz Kid and Steinski's map of vocal collages. Except this was ALSO Hip-Hop, a punk-rock rap of it's own; here is Rammelzee on "Interior Street" and "Exterior Street" laying down the same convoluted ikonoklastic law as on his No Wave Electro masterpiece "The Lecture." Ramm, Argabright's long-time colleague and partner in Gothic Futurism, on furious form.
Plenty of feel here for the horizontal too, as on the nimble electro flow of "Funky Dream One" (albeit slightly marred by the push-button-repeat vocal fills) and chasm-tastic ambience on "America 2" and "Scratching Galaxies" (the Kodwo Eshun of “More Brilliant Than The Sun” would have a field day with that one!) In fact at it's best, and the 6 tracks rescued from a live show of DCC's early incarnation ArenaSexDeath Star Crew excel, this (like "The Lecture") is eerily reminiscent of the shrill, emotionally bracing textures of Scott Walker's "Tilt."