WOEBOT

I-WOLF
I-WOLF AND BURDY MEET THE BABYLONIANS
KLEIN RECORDS KLCD064

BY MATTHEW INGRAM

With this kind of project, where studio nerds assemble a cast of voices to augment their beats, the result is often arid. Thankfully I-Wolf and Burdy appear to be having as much fun as their guests. Beer is spilt on the mixing desk. I half expected this record, weighty with allusions to sound-system culture, to be an extension of the Berlin dub axis (along the lines of the Basic Channel and Seed/Germaican releases), to paraphrase Moebius and Plank "Rastakraut Pasta", but rather it's an incitement to dance freakily, successfully reconnecting with the original avant-garde party vibes of ZE records and the primordial frolics of intelligent techno. The record's outernational bent, improbable touches of Eastern European folk collide with Le Rap and bassy eclectronica, paints a convincing picture of a gang of nomadic misfits adrift from instituted culture in sufferance of it's paucity of relevance to their intense demands; a culture they believe is at once not sufficiently cerebral and neither funky enough. These mentalist hedonists have gone glocal, the band of 50 whoop it up in a basement under the flyover somewhere nowhere.

"Meet The Babylonians" is characterised by eccentric touches like the rave motorbass on "Wonders and Signs", the Balkan horns of “Money Money”, and the uncomfortably sped-up disco loop of "A Modern Life" it's coerced hyperceleration paralleling the account of enforced intercourse in the sex trade. Kwal and RQM deliver most excellent French rhymes on "USA", whose scything skanking sonics owe as much Der Plan as King Jammy. Other vocalists also excel on the duo's spiky sound beds. There's an appearance by the ubiquitous Warrior Queen (now working with everyone from Sunship to The Bug) and one by Shaun Ryder. Ryder's underground credibility has been almost permanently bleached by Black Grape, but don't forget the genuinely odyshape ramblings of The Happy Mondays "Squirrel And G-Man Twenty Four Hour Party People Plastic Face Carnt Smile (White Out)" wherein are revealed his untainted roots.

There's a little redundancy. "Urban Gypsy" spells out the, er urban gypsy aesthetic, a little too literally but this reviewers complaints stop there. "I-Wolf and Burdy meets the Babylonians" is as surprising and charming as it's excellent cover, a naively painted tableau of animal-headed people grouped partying round a light blue truck.