WOEBOT

Aim High Volume Two
Various Artists
Aim High

More than any MC, producers Target and his henchman Danny Weed and their Aim High imprint stand beside Terrah Danjah at the very forefront of Grime. This compilation (and its unmissable accompanying DVD) already looks set to be one 2005s key releases. It's a landmark for Grime in terms of both its scope, a panoply of riddims, MCs and Singers and its beautiful production.

Targets sound is immediately recognisable, a spooling open-spaced mesh of hollow tympani, padding tom-toms, middle-eastern accordian and Sylvian/Sakamoto-esque gaijin synthesiser. It's the most bewitching context you can imagine for the dread bark of Grime's finest MCs Riko Dan, Ruff Squad and Bruza. Target, who like many of the Grime auteurs, cut his teeth on Jungle ransacks the occident for subtle dread, and tools these sounds into squidgy narcotically-seductive ultra-modern grooves. It's essentially the same instinct that finds Wiley shopping for samples at World Music shop Sterns.

The CD is home to some real bounty. Bruzas "Freestyle" showcases his doppler-effect delivery over Target's gladiatorial drum beat. On his combatitive exhortations in the form of "You've got a few rhymes but you're just not ready!" Bruzas lines trail off as though you were falling down a well. The effect is at once chilling and hilarious. This is to say nothing of the mans poetry: "I'm ready like steady go, born ready from the get go." Dogzillas "Neverending Story," in which Dog-Z tells movingly of his battle against the odds in "the game" over what is a ringer for a Rhythim is Rhythim track, is set to be a future classic. Other highlights include Roll Deeps "Don't Choke" with its Afghani-inflected mentasm stabs.