Reviews*1
Dizzy Rascal: Trapped (XL)
Unmissable Rascal nestled midst 4-track EP. On this message to the underground Dizzy
lambasts fellow Grime Lord's failure to break beyond the perameters of the scene as
victem psychosis. Dirty Skanking riddim with militant pogo-bass and heliated vocal
hook is thrillingly atonal and uncompromised.
Trim feat Riko Dan, Wiley and D Double E: Boogieman (Aftershock)
Grime gore issuing from Terrah Danjah's peerless Aftershock imprint. Strings loom out
from Hitchcock's fevered id. Trim, Footsie, Riko Dan, Wiley then D Double take turns
riding the serpent, unsure as to whether they are the loahs or the possesed. Once like
Trim you're "scared of none of them" you become fear itself.
Lethal B: Forward Riddim
The irrepressible bizzle. A massive grassroots hit, 11 MCs (including underground heroes like Jamakabi, D Double and Flow-Dan) pon top a synth stab. Forward pushing it's way into the charts on the back of a white label, soon to be in the regular stores, and like "Oi", More Fire's earlier mainstream encroachment, hard as nails and almost completely devoid of melody. The winning recipe? Energy.
VA: Run The Road (679)
At last a compilation of vocal tracks from the by now mature Grime Underground! It's beyond exciting to hear the distinctive voices of Doogz, D Double, Stryder and Trim being given the plateaux they deserve, thrilling to imagine the impact these characters are going to make on the unsuspecting mainstream. Wiley and Dizzy's records, with their focus upon the single auteur don't really convey the spectral range of emotions encompassed by Grime, they do a disservice to the genre's mass-collectivisation, to the swarms of voices which give Grime it's texture.
Highlights are almost too many to mention. Astutely collated by journalist Martin Clark "Run The Road" is one part bona-fide underground hit: Riko's overpowering message to the yout "The Chosen One", Kano's blink and you would have missed it in the shops "P's and Q's", Lady Sovereign's cubist "Ch Ching" and Tinchy Stryder's collaboration with tipped underground crew Ruff Squad "Move". At once it's a showpiece for some red hot dubplates that have yet to hit the racks: Roll Deep's gorgeous melankolic "Let It Out", Dizzy Rascal's "Give You More" (another collaboration with D Double in the vein of "Stretch") and Dogzilla's "Gimme Dat".
"Run The Road" also has it's distinctive traits, an almost misrepresentatively thorough selection of tracks by ladies. Shystie and Lady Sovereign (both of whom skirt the inner-scene's periphery) get a look in, however it's excellent to hear, again exclusive to the comp, Unorthodox Daughter's "No Lay". Here's a post Lady Saw MC who truly embodies the Grime aesthetic. Lovely too are the shades of rhythmic and poetic psychedelia on Ears' "Happy Dayz" which can be heard elsewhere at the scene's bleeding edge. No one can afford to miss this.