WOEBOT

FACT 10’s “The Twenty Best…” column gave Andy Votel the opportunity to focus on Prog Rock. His breakout was awe-inspiring, adopting as it did an almost unfettered globalist approach to the genre. Offerings from Sweden, Yugoslavia, Wales, Greece, Korea, Turkey and Australia rubbed shoulders. The subsequently released, Votel-curated Prog is Not a Four Letter Word collection on Delay 68, was my favourite compilation of last year, an unmissable romp.

However, I confess I took issue with Votel’s thesis. His argument, albeit one made in the face of what he perceives to be hipster disdain, was that the exotic bounty of Global Prog made irrelevant the vile excess and cultural tepidity of Brit Prog. Remaining suspicious of Prog, it seems we’ve yet to overthrow Punk’s depressing orthodoxy. I’d relish a world when these ten fabulous Brit Prog records cropped up as regularly as Never Mind The Bollocks or London Calling in people’s favourites.

Votel approaches the genre from the perspective of the Hip-Hop break-hunter, which method though, it yields great music in the terrains of Library and Soundtrack music, fails to do justice to the knotty arrhythmia of the best Prog. A record like The Egg’s Civil Service might tick the appropriate boxes, Votel himself singling their eponymous debut for praise amidst foreign offerings, but Van Der Graaf Generator’s quite awesome Pawn Hearts, the quintessential “difficult” UK Prog LP by merit of its preposterous cracked brooding soundscapes won’t gain acceptance.

Furthermore much of the music on Prog Is Not a Four Letter Word in the strictest terms isn’t Prog, but Psych. It’s a difficult to distinction to make, but Prog makes an unpeggable leap into the future, while Psych builds on the whimsical, cosmic, LSD-addled legacy of 60s Psychedelia. So Henry Cow are Prog and Gong are Psych. A record as self-consciously curious as Quiet Sun’s Mainstream by the pre-This Heat Charles Hayward is clearly Prog, but Family’s exquisite Music In a Doll’s House, even though it forms some strange shapes of its own and cleaves to a theme, by merit of Roger Chapman’s bluesy vocals, might just be a Psych record.

Votel rightfully discharges Genesis and Yes without the slightest consideration for some reason Caravan get caught in the friendly fire. Perhaps a victim of the “breaks” aesthetic which dictates that all offerings must be obscure, otherwise they’d not be respectable Akai fodder? But I wonder how many people have actually heard Caravan’s In the Land of Grey and Pink, a really splendid record? If it’s Canterbury records you’re interested in, Kevin Ayers’ Whatevershebringswesing is worth investigating, the drum breaks on which in fact might even find favour with Hip-Hop producers.

Prog’s calling card might be its strangeness. Comus’s First Utterance and The Third Ear Band’s Alchemy represent some kind of benchmark for the weird. Both records are talismans for both the Avant-Folk movement and latterly the oeuvre of Current 93 and Nurse with Wound. This is a folk music so true to folk music’s spirit of blasphemy and the unheimlich that they sidestep the clichés which bedevil even the best of it.

If there’s one thing which people, even the “fat, boring, smelly and socially inept” Prog fans who Votel mercilessly parodies in his piece, won’t tell you about is how majestically beautiful and blissful some of this music can be. I’d always assumed all King Crimson would be somehow violent, brutish and ugly. Theorist Mark Fisher once nicely caricatured what was so off-putting about Prog thus: “that jabbing masculine jerkiness, that anti-plateau jumpiness”, but strange to tell Court of The Crimson King is at once gentle and awe-inspiringly gorgeous. Curved Air’s Second Album is another example of sheer loveliness in Prog.

With all sense of the possible imminence of a new revolution in music ebbing away, the attraction of Prog is that it represents a sense of an underlying tradition in opposition (rather than, like Punk, a false sense of revolt through rupture). Votel’s excellent compilation represents a nascent interest in this music. With some of today’s brightest lights revealing an empathy with Prog’s overwrought involuted textures, the Black Prog-lite of Sa-Ra, the Disco-Prog of Jackson and Delia and Gavin and the Sampladelic-Library Prog of the Ghost Box label, then perhaps it’s about time to confront it on its own terms? Global Prog is one thing, but whether it was France’s Heldon or Italy’s Banco del Mutuo Soccorso, in fact almost everywhere with the exception of Germany’s Krautrock scene, back in the day all eyes were on the UK.

Originally published in FACT magazine.

Posted by WOEBOT at 09:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

The Advisory Circle: Mind How You Go (GhostBox.co.uk)
Former King of Woolworths delivers a mini masterpiece of what the critics are branding "Hauntology". Expect to be teleported back to the site of your eeiriest childhood memories.

Trim and Roachie: Pen'n'Paper (White)
Fresh from his 9' high breakdancing opus "Trim and Scratch", Roll Deep's sleepy-eyed boy wonder teams up with Roachie, drops sly rhymes and rides a backward-slanting beat on this instant classic.

Danny Weed: Cloud Nine (White)
Grime's genius producer here with a quite exquisite, almost Detroit-ish sounding riddim, which sports his usually seductive Middle Eastern Accordian Cubase preset.

Ruff Sqwad and Wiley: Together (White)
Ruff Sqwad, the crew who can do no wrong team up with uncle William (our most underrated MC) for what almost scans like a paen to their heart-breaking love affair with Grime.

Posted by WOEBOT at 09:25 PM | Permalink

Singles:

Jammer and Lewi White: Countdown Remix (White)
Richard Whitely turns in his grave as Jammer and crew tear it up inna fine style 'pon the Countdown riddim. More balls than the original and boasting a vintage Ardkore flow.

Dogzilla: Hello (Dogenham)
Danny Weed delivers another of his Amphiteatrical beats and Dogzilla makes like an overweight sweaty East-end Maximus Prime and throws his girth around.

J Sweet Feat Aaron Soul and C-man: Marxmen (White)
Grimey-style take on Blackstreet's "No Diggedy". The baseline corners like a low-slung Cadillac taking the long arc, assuredly behind the beat. Exquisite, plaintive vocals full of male regret.

Essentials: Young Dot EP (Paperchase)
All Grime's hallmarks, inflexible drums, cascading string samples, horror bass, prismatised post-Swizz Beatz synthlines, rendered into something like a definitive vision of this music.

LPs:

Northern Lights: Sparked (VIP Recordings)
Do your best to sit still when you play this utterly danceable state-of-the-art Bhangra by Glasgow producers Tarv and Dev. Dhol and Dholkey romp across the soundscape and Sarangi weaves in and out of vocals from the Punjab's finest. 15 tracks with the consistent ability to send shivers down your spine.

Dr. Zeus: The Original Edit (Envy)
Another classic offering from Dr. Zeus, Bhangra's genius producer, the equal of 2003's faultless "Unstoppable". This time Zeus employs legendary vocalist Lehmber Hussainpuri across the length of the record, rather than for just a track or two and the results are spell-binding. Concomitant with Bhangra's current's roots vogue there are lots of exquisite instrumental colour from the Algoza (flutes) and Tumbi (the single-stringed mandolin) though the production style is, as you'd expect from Zeus, electro-chrome.

Posted by WOEBOT at 11:38 AM | Permalink

Bhangra and Islam.

“Perhaps what (the Extreme Muslims) really need isn't Communism so much as a surrogate belief system/ideological framework for their rage ... they need their own kind of rock'n'roll... something to divert and defuse them as effectively... as rock culture has done vis-a-vis Western youth these past 40 years...” Simon Reynolds.

This informal remark by the New York-based Music Theorist Simon Reynolds prompted by the bombings in London on July 7th zoned in on the similar “profiling” shared by July’s Suicide Bombers, and the make-up of the characters who have historically been the motor of many innovations in the UK’s music scene. Statistical data collated by Israeli agencies has revealed that “the typical suicide bomber” is young, well-educated (23% of suicide bombers since 2000 possessing a University Degree), from a lower-middle class background and hungry for celebrity. Contributing to his speculation, Reynolds highlighted the unabashed flirtation with terrorist imagery present in Punk (spun off from the RAF and Baader-Meinhoff) and Jungle and the pseudo-terrorist stance taken by The Clash, and MIA. There is a sense in which Reynolds is denigrating Rock’s role in depoliticisation through diversion over the decades, though these “neutered” cultural forces do have their own validity.

Music is external to the religion of Islam. Recitals of the Koran, though their delivery has Psalmic qualities, are never accompanied by instrumentation. Music is seen as clouding the message of the holy book. Many Islamic scholars, such as Mustafa Sabri are unequivocal that music is “haraam”, forbidden by the prophet. These scholars cite incidents in the Quran in which Mohammed denounces it. On the other hand more moderate voices say there is a place for Music if it’s content is in accordance with Islam, pointing to its appropriateness in some situations, such as before war. In spite of the mundane fact it’s common for Muslims to download “Nasheeds” (religious songs) from the Internet, there is an unsureness about the ethics of music which leads even the lofty artistic pinnacles of Qawwali to be viewed with some suspicion.

Harry SONA of London’s SONA Family, riding high in the UK Bhangra charts with the effervescent “Glassy”, describes himself playfully as “a Friday Jumma Boy”. He might not pray five days a day but will do his best to say Friday prayers at the Mosque every week. Harry’s cousin Usmaan, who had garnered a reputation as “the Asian Tupac” on account of his gritty raps, left the group to become a more orthodox Muslim. Aware that their music business lifestyle were “Jihali” (contravening the moral code of Islam) he saw no way of combining his beliefs with their music, surer still that the boys and girls on the street heard enough talk of religion at home. But could the message of antipathy to US Imperialism and disgust at the politics of oil, content-wise the musical counterpart to the writing of free-thinking firebrand Tariq Ali, be harnessed to the Bhangra Beat? Harry remarks: “If I could find the right voice and the right person, I would do it in a flash. But it’s not like when Public Enemy came out and were preaching Black pride and Black power. To an extent they were going to get shut down, but this is just too close to the bone. That’s like loyalists coming out and doing Rap songs!” Conflating Islamic Music with Bhangra might appear to be slovenly journalistic shorthand. After all, Bhangra is a Sikh invention isn’t it? Truthfully the matter becomes more shaded and complex the closer one examines it. Asian Musical culture in the UK has an internal unity that is as much to do with unity in opposition to the “White” mainstream as Bhangra’s geographical legacy. The Punjab, Bhangra’s spiritual home, is split in two with the larger section in Western Pakistan. While the province’s faith as high as 63% Sikh, it’s cultural impact on predominantly Muslim Pakistani state is disproportional to its scale. In the UK, in the same way Bangladeshi cuisine dominates restaurants, so Bhangra rules the Asian music scene.

RDB (three brothers Kuly, Surj and Manj) reinvented Bhangra with their debut LP in 2002 and have subsequently dominated the music thanks to their massive label Untouchables and their year-old, insanely popular website RDBTV.com, which acts as a video gazette for the entire Bhangra scene. They’ve recently returned from Pakistan and the biggest concerts they’ve ever thrown. In Islamabad, Lahore and Karachi their audience at each show was between 20,000-30,000 people. Kuly: “We were surprised. They don’t care that we’re Sikhs… I don’t think it’s ever reached that level here. We’re like amazing superstars out there.” The bleed between the Sikh and Muslim is perhaps more pronounced over here. Half of the SONA Family are Sikh and the other half Muslim and RDB’s Guitarist and engineer is Muslim, indeed RDB venture to describe their audience in the UK as predominantly Muslim: “They’ve claimed Bhangra as theirs.” There are many big names in Bhangra who are Muslims, like Metz and Trix and Tariq Khan. While Harry describes The SONA Family as never having been a Bhangra group: “We are Desis who do Hip-Hop and R’n’B”, their records sit squarely in the Bhangra charts.

The bombings in the summer hit RDB particularly hard. Based in Bradford, a few miles down the road from where Hussain, Khan, Lindsay and Tanweer lived, they were appalled: “When they linked the attacks to those clowns to Leeds we were shocked, it was just the last thing we needed. After the Bradford Riots and all the negative aspects of life this side of Yorkshire. It put the nail in the coffin.” His brother Surj remarks: “Some idiots set fire to a Sikh flag at a Sikh temple as well. There was a time when ANY Asians, ANY Brown person would be scared to go out.” The riots in Bradford, Oldham and Burnley in the Summer 2001 might be seen as some kind of precursor to the July bombings. The Cantle report commissioned by the Home Office after the riots described communities where people were living “parallel” and “polarised” lives. Is it too simplistic to imagine a situation wherein Bhangra, at the same time as acting a mouthpiece for discontent, contributes to a weakening of this divide? Before conceding that Harry SONA may be right in concluding that Muslim dissent, or indeed extreme orthodoxy, will continue to be channeled through Islam, and not sprout into something illicit yet vibrant like the UK’s early post-Acid House culture, it’s worth reminding one-self that according to most Muslim authorities the acts of July 7th represented, not an expression of Islam, but a perversion of it.

Running counter to this speculation there is evidence in Blakstone’s ground-breaking debut “Dark Dayz” that Hip-Hop, not Bhangra, will prove to be the chosen outlet for the frustrations of Islamic youth in the UK. In its favour “the message” is abundantly clear in rolling English, but (and this from the perspective of a self-confessed white middle-class aesthete) the formulation lacks both Bhangra’s riddimatic frisson and its electrifying Punjabi vocals. Listen to a Bhangra track like Indy Sagu’s “Club Chaleeay” (released on Untouchables RDB’s imprint) and one imagines one’s eavesdropping on a militant fury; tapping into the kind of excitement which made Public Enemy such a vicarious thrill.

Blissblog
RDBTV
Sona Family
Blakstone

This piece was originally published in FACT Magazine. With special thanks to Sean, Simon, Harry, Surj and Kuly.

Posted by WOEBOT at 01:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Isn't it fair to say the mechanics of file sharing are incredibly dull? There's so little at stake in the transfer of data between nodes that the value of what's being transferred is often obscured.
The inchoate fury of musicians who feel they've been ripped off comes in stark contrast to the attitude of most people who use P2P networks, a kind of puzzled ennui. How could anything so banal be
illegal? While there are "chat" facilities in Soulseek and Limewire's software how often does one actually use them? And what kind of exchanges are people having on these inline channels? Not much in the way of the life-changing dialogue one suspects. The internet is only so great.

With all this in mind I put on my best smile and set off down Oxford Street on a Saturday afternoon handing out free CDs. Motivated as much by self-promotion as fear of litigation, everything I gave away was "my stuff". I included a movie I'd made a long time ago, a comic I'd drawn, a few radio shows I'd done, and some vintage mixes. Even though we couldn't resist taking a detour past the Sony BMG
headquarters for a photo opportunity on the way home, I'm basically sceptical of pro file-sharing rhetoric (www.downhillbattle.org). Is it really alright to give away other people's music for free?

This was great fun. Shoppers immediately grasped the conceptual angle. Lithe French tourists hugged me, whole Asian families gathered round to have their portrait taken, cabbies stopped to collect a
disc, radical hipsters raised a salute and small children pointed and giggled. Though the temperature slightly dropped as we entered trendy Soho, people were still smiling. Giving away the CDs was easier than I'd anticipated, and once the crowd got the idea everyone piled in. Quite what they'll make of the contents I don't know, but people are open-minded enough aren't they?

Rapper D2i of Black Mobb Entertainment, who sells his mix-tapes on Oxford Street much in the way I was doling mine out, was the only person who voiced concern. My giving away CDs was bad for his
business he volunteered. However once I'd assured him that this was definitely a one-off stunt, we became firm friends united in the knowledge that hitting the street as cold-calling ambassadors for our own tiny visions takes a certain amount of chutzpah.

Pictures Here

Posted by WOEBOT at 11:02 AM | Permalink

Run The Road: Volume Two (679)
They've taken the bold move of packing the sequel to the peerless RTR compilation full of exclusive tracks. There's plenty in the way of first class Grime (Big Seac's "Nah, Nah", JME's "Serious Remix", Doctor and DaVinche's "Gotta Man") but too much plain old UK Hip-Hop (Klashnekoff and Sway) and again an eccentric inclination to represent the practically non-existent axis of female Grime. Even if Mizz Beats "Saw It Coming" is an excellent production, why is it here in place of a Target or Aftershock joint? It's a good collection, the accompanying DVD is an excellent bonus, and it'll stand on it's own merits, but it's not what the scene needs, which is a Solid Gold Grime primer folk can pick up at HMV.

P Jam: The Compass EP (Dice)
An MC for each point on London's "Compass" Sporting a superb panic riddim from P Jam, Narstie (South) grips the beat like a gloc, Flirta-D (West) is at his most bizarre, Guyver (East) holds court as master of ceremonies, and Frisco (North) just plain excels. "Compass" is the ultra crunchula.

Ruff Sqwad: Underground (Ruff Sqwad Recordings)
Just as the squid hit us with their latest, a bizarre rough-riding version of Billy Joel's "Uptown Girl" (which some commentators have remarked is eclipsed by Westlife's version!), it's worth casting our minds back to this Grime classic of a couple of months back, surely the only candidate for Grime track of the year?

Statik: Connected (All Star)
State of the Art Grime triple twelve inch from old skool giants Heartless Crew's producer. D Double E fascinates on "Superdoop" on top of Statik's prismatic carousel riddim. Other highlights include the star-studded MC extravanganzas of "Polygraph" and "The Set". Even the splendid comic-book cover art takes no prisoners.

Posted by WOEBOT at 12:01 PM | Permalink

Back in April when Bossman Reynolds was over I excitedly pitched him the idea that I was going to attempt to go down to Rinse to write a piece for my mag FACT. Simon replied kind of casually, "Oh I'm going down there with Martin Clark tomorrow night." I was totally crest-fallen. Just typical I thought. I was green with envy when i read Blackdown's subsequent note here. Later on I mentioned to Martin Clark aka Blackdown in an email that I would have loved to had the chance to visit the station, but thought it was pretty much a done deal. So I was surprised when he said he didnt think it'd matter at all. I plucked up courage and asked Reynolds, who also didnt seem to mind. Subsequently, thanks to Blackdown, I made contact with the station's management and arranged a date. Also luckily for me the man Luke Davis agreed to come along and keep me company. We've both (Luke and I kept shtum about the visit online) really out of deference to Simon, but as Blissblogger has pointed out the Rinse visit was only one part of his incipent piece. Whats more FACT has been on the streets for nearly a month. Anyway, without further procrastination here's my uncut version of the piece replete with photos.

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Wiley/Trim/Maximum/Jammer/Syer

Darren and DJ Glamma pick Heronbone and I up at the tube. We're on the way to Rinse FM, London's most notorious, high-profile pirate station, running now for over ten years it has recently reached a critical momentum with it's Friday night DJ, Logan Sama (the Tim Westwood of Grime), being picked up by Kiss FM and Roll Deep, the station's biggest resident crew, about to make a media splash with their debut LP in May. The ever-modest Rinse management have kept the ball rolling since the twilight years of Jungle and its the continuity of presence which they've given the station, as much as their skill in maneuvering within the charged political atmosphere of Grime and their flair for picking artists for the station's roster, which has been instrumental in its success.

Wiley lets us into the studio. We hasten to the basement. The space is divided in three parts, an unlit area visible only with the light of one's mobile phone, comprising a kitchen (a transmitter's LEDs blinking beside a chrome sink in the dark) and toilet. Further on one enters a long low ceilinged room, the floor carpeted in red, with walls of grooved varnished mdf and sporting two flouncey sofas (from Courts?) which nestle beside the sound booth wherein Tubby martials a scorching set from MCs Bruza and Footsie. It's a shock to be confronted so intimately with artists whose work I've followed for some time, whose personas I feel so familiar with. The last time I came this close to Wiley was at Eskimo Dance in November 2003 when he and his entourage performed a walk-by surveying the length of the thousand or so strong queue. In such intimate company it's easy to forget what a huge cultural presence he is. He's introduced to us William and cadges a Stella off us.

Skepta reading off the missed calls.

Darren feels a little defensive about the station's illegal stature. Certainly we don't care. The DTI's stated reasons for shutting down pirates and impounding transmitters (at £400 a pop) is that they interfere with frequencies reserved for the emergency services. This is quite obviously rubbish, it's clearly commercial imperatives which motivate the policy to keep real estate on the FM dial clear for license payers. However you'd be wrong to assume there was any money to be made in pirates, Darren reflects somewhat ruefully that at the end of the month, even taking into account the financial contributions crews make for the honor of going on air, they usually are out of pocket. Of course Rinse is but one part of a mini-media empire, operating as a promotional focal point for other more profitable ventures (an Rinse CD is mooted right now), but it still disappoints them that they will imminently lose one of their better DJs in Logan Sama to a major station (where he'll earn good money, better money than Darren does) and that Radio 1xtra can descend with it's chequebook and rebrand their innovations. I ask him if they ever intend going legal, but it would be costly and in going off-air for three years (as the DTI stipulates) it would be difficult to maintain momentum. Wiley hi-jacks the conversation. It'll only take one person to strike gold he counsels us and it'd be sorted, then we'd make the station legal. It's sobering to reflect that the government aren't their only problem. The placement of transmitters on certain tower-blocks frequently inspires a territorial response from "Urban" music fans themselves. Time is often wasted explaining to irate callers that, no, the equipment isn't being moved on their so say so. Apparently for smaller stations this is a wearingly persistent problem. Transmitters are also frequently stolen.

Wiley

DJ Glamma fields a call from Dogzilla. Dogzy is pushing a fifteen-year-old MC on Rinse. Darren wearily insists that the guy isn't ready yet and again Wiley intervenes. Wiley has been down in Dagenham recently and, perhaps with a trace of humor, insists that Dagenham is overflowing with talented MCs like Dogzy and Roll Deep's own Syer. I was down there the other day, he says, and everyone one was coming up to me, greeting me, "Hey Wiley!" There's something in the air right now in Dagenham, he volunteers, again with something like a grin. Darren insists the guy isn't ready yet, but Wiley, who seems to telescope in stature at times during the evening (you could swear he was eight foot tall) persists in fighting the case for this unknown white 15 year-old he's never heard or met. It's weirdly touching and precisely the reason Grime has a future. I remark to Darren that it must be difficult to strike a balance. It is he insists, enjoying Wiley's entreaties but at the same time obviously a little put-upon. I suppose that was Jungle's weakness I remark, that it's self-appointed cabal failed to let new talent through. They did us a favor, we got our own thing, comes back the answers, but even now not without a shade of bitterness and regret.

D Double arrives sporting a Dirtee Skank t-shirt, some kind of indication that the rumors of him being signed to Dizzy's own label are true, looking incredibly focussed, maybe even glowing with some lambent energy. He shakes hands gently before wandering through to the sound booth. Cloudy with sinsemilla smoke, and throbbing with Tubby's mix of his own slickly-produced Grime and the latest dubplates. Two decks face the east wall and a black and white TV screen trained on the studio entrance rests in the far corner. D Double hits his stride: "more bars than the west end" as we press against the back wall. He's so nimble and ferociously angular it's breath-taking. The house mobile shows 70 plus missed calls, people registering their delight. It's interval time and the adverts roll.

Roll Deep's DJs Maximum and Karnage sidle through. In the meantime other members of the Roll Deep entourage file in, appearing first as ghostly figures on the street on the CCTV. Trim, Flow Dan, Syer, Roachie, producer Skepta in turn cram into the tiny room and the rhyme temperature rises. Grime MCs are very much like super-heroes in a Marvel comics vein, put five or more together and their magnificence increases exponentially, each of their special powers complimenting the others, collectively united against a common foe. Wiley steps up and tips the balance. The vibe begins to reach fever pitch, Maximum starts pulling rewinds as the massive ignites like a chorus of drunken pirates, chanting eachother's verses. Just as Trim takes the mic and bemoans the absence of key crew in the form of Riko Dan (the acknowledged MC don dada) and Scratchy D, we're thrown a complete wild card, and none other than Jammer pitches up. Everyone's sheer glee ratches up another few notches, Jammer (though strictly speaking not an MC) takes the mic and delivers a hoarsely hilarious set. Shouts of "nekkle" and "shower-face" trigger yet more rewinds.

Tinchy Stryder

Roll Deep melt away into the night, supplanted by the less rambunctious but more tightly focussed Ruff Sqwad. I talk at some length to Tinchy Stryder their slyly intelligent ring-leader, complimenting him on their latest tunes "Bring it down", "Jam Pie" (apparently a collaboration with Jammer) and Tinchy's new track "Underground" the video of which is now heavily rotated on Channel U, before myself slipping away, reflecting on what couldn't have been a more enervating experience, a memory I'll always treasure.

Posted by WOEBOT at 10:48 AM | Permalink

Fire Camp "No" (Lethal Bizzle Records)
Dexplicit's production here the definitive context for More Fire Crew's pent up energy; locking down his signature chainsaw-through-a-car-bumper sound better than on the beeftasmic "Backwards", that brutal response to The Bizzle's hatas. This too banned on the dancefloors of Essex.

Jammer and Pit "Jam and Pit" (JahmekTheWorld)
Jammer has veritably exploded with a slew of new material after a lengthy period off the radar. His label JahmekTheWorld has recently put out the excellent "Fire Hydrant EP" and the choice "Right Hooks" with that other Newham General Footsie, as well as a host of other records all packaged with surprising care. Orchestral stabs in effect.

J2K & Crazy Titch: "Stop" (White Label)
Which has big choon written all over it. Titch certainly has an ear for a catchy chorus, a gift he used brilliantly on the now classic "Singalong". Joined here as a foil by the contrastingly tidy sounding J2K, Crazy upbraids MCs biting his and J's style. Cease and desist all man dem, U R not original!

Ruff Sqwad: "Jam Pie" (White Label)
Tinchy and crew freelancing on one of Jammer's riddims, an absolutely essential tune. Jammer pushing the orientalist "Bamboo Houses" sound pioneered by Wiley into ever more distinctive patterns and Ruff Sqwad as moody and slack as ever, the yin to Roll Deep's yang.

Sparks and Kie: "Fly BI Megamix" (White Label)
This little ray of sunshine is nought but sheer fun. The accapella from the 'riginal spelling tune is draped over a tidy megamix style collage of back-in-the-day old school Garage anthems, while you get to name that tune. Works wonders.

Posted by WOEBOT at 11:55 AM | Permalink

Kane Robinson on this sure-to-be-massive tune. Kano has been running red since his break-through collaboration Jammer "Boys Love Girls", a tune which made it clear he was the star MC of N.A.S.T.Y crew. Since then he's had a string of underground hits with MC Demon on the pugilistic "Gansta Toys", with former Roll Deep producer Wonder on the post-Nightmares on Wax orgasmic-oddyssey "What Have You Done?" and has taken the "Ludacris" role to Sadies "Ashanti" on Terrah Danjahs idyllytronic R'n'G flickerscape "So Sure."

On the underground Kano's smooth-talking ultra-efficent rhyming and boyish good looks have marked him out as a ladies man par excellence, however both "P's and Q's" and "Mic Fight", slightly lower-key releases at his new home 679 records, have suggested he's willing to keep the bpms up and his fangs intact. "Typical Me", with its snappy noir-ish club-story video, will surely be the track to bring him to an even wider audience. Riding a slack-metal riff at an unforbidding Hip-Hop tempo, Kano shows yet more breadth to his vision, gives his weary and nimble rhymes more room to snake around, and opens his arms to the fans of Dylan Mills and Mike Skinner.

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If you like this, you might also like:
> Sharkie Major: This Ain't A Game (White) 2003
> D Double: Birds In The Sky (White) 2003
> Wonder and Plan B: Cap Black (679) 2005
> The Surgery Feat. Mr. Big Shott: Shott the Weed (Social Circles) 2003
> The Streets: Get Out of My House Remix (XL) 2004

Posted by WOEBOT at 11:53 AM | Permalink

Beef? You want beef! I'll give all the trimmings! Armshouse? You want armshouse! I'll give you armshouse at your sixth form media college in the video editing suite! Nokia face-off! I'll knock YOUR face off! (Slumps) If like me you're trying to peel yourself off the floor of 2005, struggling to look the looming edifice of the forthcoming year in the eye you'd do as well to point your browser at rhythmdivision.co.uk or independance-records.co.uk and pick up a copy of the "Aim High Volume Two DVD" (Aim High). Watch Riko fresh from the clinker cluck like a chicken and toy with a man-size joint as he swivels in an armchair behind Targets billion-track console, easily the best TV you'll watch this year. Witness the Newham General as he lisps and his eyeballs pop in Jammers lab. Listen with your eyes as Targets signature afghani-flavoured accordian spools out into the poorly-lit vacated office building (with its beige deep ply carpet) that doubles as the Aim High HQ, and think everything you see.

The DVD is the new lingua franca of Grime. Only DJs and Middle-class tossbags like me buy the twelve inches for goodness sakes! In the hood man dem just tape Logan Sama's show and huddle round the Playstation. In the past few months we've seen more DVDs than Iceland offers combo deals on the full array of frozen goods. "Risky Roads", "Practice Hours" and before them "Lord of The Decks" and "Box Bloody Fresh", and the pace of their release is definitely quickening. Well it's a bargain innit, you get a charisma-packed DVD glittering with all your favourite icons strutting their stuff AND a CD. Sorted. It's hard to imagine how the pressure can be maintained, yet another East End expose would surely strain the patience, but with a glut of other sets in the pipeline the format is here to stay. The DVD looks set to become to Grime what the extended mix twelve inch was to Disco, the flexi-disc was to Indie, the 8-cassette pack was Hardcore and the mix CD is to Hip-Hop. The ramifications for the scene's structure of grassroots outlets (the pirate radio show, the underground record store etc) is yet to be felt, though the growth of Channel U, the cable show which screens the escalating number of shoestring Grime Pop Promos may be indicative of the change in climate towards a more visually-oriented culture.

It's the time of year when one has patience for only two sorts of music: the violent and the melancholic. While Grime may service the former, for the latter you'd do as well to reach for "Gather in the Mushrooms" (Castle) a collection of British Acid Folk Rock forged between 1968 and 1974. This brilliant and timely compilation, guided by the invisible hand of St Etienne's Bob Stanley will give you the inside track on this glaciated hinterland. With electronica artists like Matmos and Kieran Hebden relishing in the cod-ethnicity of Comus, Pentangle and Vashti Bunyan (an ethnicity which seems more compellingly authentic with the passing of time) and with prices for the original vinyl spirraling ever upward, here's a nifty short-cut to hipster nirvana.

Posted by WOEBOT at 11:47 AM | Permalink

With David Leafs "Beautiful Dreamer" movie the dust finally settles on SMILE. This biopsy of the original events surrounding Brian Wilson's SMILE LP and its subsequent re-recording forms the coda to a laborious cultural pregnancy. Wilsons LP took him in the region of 36 years to realise. Unfortunately the movie cements the superficial observation that here is a project whose time has long past. Throughout the documentary we're greeted by people sitting, sitting in studios, sitting in serrid audiences, sitting heads talk, sitting slumped in sofas; all vital energy appears to have been sapped. The "quality" AOR press huffs and puffs, struggling with the events empty portent. The record pips in at respectable mid-twenties in critics end-of-year round ups and is roundly ignored by the yoof, an audience it was once squarely aimed at. Of what possible consequence is SMILE in the year of Bruza?

SMILEs history is so well known as to be concrete lore. In spite of not having been released the LP can still inspire flights of lunacy like Domenic Priores "Look! Listen! Vibrate! SMILE!" which 300-page tome collects a vaste mass of data surounding the record. Brian Wilson attempts to outdo his own achievements on "Pet Sounds". With the rest of The Beach Boys on tour he sets about crafting a "religious white spiritual music.....a teenage symphony to God." The cream of LAs session musicians improvise freely under his direction at $100 an hour, pianos are placed in sandpits and slowly marijuana accelerates Wilsons psychosis (this dismissed in the movie). Brian begins to lose sight of the structure his jigsaw of overdubs and fragments is supposed to ressemble, suspecting "Mrs O'Learys Cow" to be the cause of a spate of fires around LA. With lyricist Van Dyke Parks departure and the return of a freaked out Beach Boys clan, headed by Brians sceptical cousin Mike Love, there aren't enough people around on Brians trip to keep the ball rolling and the record is canned.

In Paul Williams book "How Deep is the Ocean?", Williams points out in conversation to David Anderle, Wilsons confidant through the Smile-era and the founder of Wilsons Brother records, that "...one way of finishing it would have been to break up the group." Anderle replies: "...it was easier, I think, to get rid of the outsiders like myself than it was to break up the brothers. You can't break up brothers." The cult of Brian Wilson tends to ignore that Brians destiny was tied up with that of his beloved siblings the spiritual Carl and rugged Dennis. Indeed SMILEs eventual gestation may be a slow response to their deaths, Dennis drunk while surfing in 1983 (literally drowning) and Carl more recently of brain cancer in 1998. It is almost as though he were, at last, free to strike out alone. With Brians touching dedications in the sleevenotes to his wife, children, son-in-laws and grand-children it's clear that central to the motif of psychic regeneration and dogged loyalty to a creative vision, is the alchemy of relations within the Wilson family.

Over the years Beach Boys fans have been weaned on SMILE bootlegs, Pet Sounds offcuts, and the half an hour of original SMILE material released on the Good Vibrations Boxset in 1993 (this curated by the selfsame David Leaf). It was an easy mistake to sleep on the records re-incarnation as this critic did, disheartened by the delibidinising spectacle of the Pet Sounds tour and Brians robotic appearance at the Queens BIrthday party concert. However, the new SMILE record is an unabated joy. The most significant thing about it is the materials thematic organisation. At last the adage about SMILEs symphonic status rings true, here is a suite worthy of Copland or Ives, the broken urn is glued together. Don't have misgivings about Wilsons band either, this charming bunch of balding misfits perform with aplomb.

There are holes in this vision of SMILE. The version of "Mrs O'Leary's Cow" (aka "Fire") one finds on the bootlegs is markedly more deranged than todays, full of genuinely disturbing sonics and edgy keening strings. Likewise "George Fell Into His French Horn", in which Wilson confidently enters the territory of the Avant Garde is airbrushed from history. Charming tracks like "The Woodshop Song" with its clattering carpentry sound-effects disappears, as do significant touches like the cod Red Indian chants on "Do You Like Worms?" pointing as they do to Brians engagement with an America prior to the arrival of The Founding Fathers. Saddest of all is the absence of the Beach Boys own banshee-wail vocals audible on the original version of "Prayer", the truest and most perfect collision of Brians aural hallucination and his brothers unmistakeable harmonies.

Posted by WOEBOT at 11:51 AM | Permalink

Grime's relationship with the mainstream is peculiarly schizophrenic. With the exception of Wiley's "Treading on thin Ice", Dizzy Rascal has become the sole representative of the genre. How extraordinary is it that the Rascal can win a Mercury Award and sell thousands of records when a pulsating scene peopled by larger-than-life MCs and genius producers struggles to sell 500 copies a white label? It's media representation gone horribly awry! Currently it's strictly a cognoscenti of nerds and loose-limbed hipsters who've taken the trouble to dip into the (occasionally forbidding) murk of Grime. This is, of course, criminal. Grime needs to be heard more widely, and it's a delight that the 679 label's compilation "Run The Road" has hit the racks and that other compilations scooping up these limited-run releases by EMI and Relentless are mooted.

The FWD scene, here represented by Plasticman, have been lucky to garner support from Rephlex records. For many the Darkcore Croydon Techno sound is more easily digestable than the occasionally ugly tones of the MC-led riot, and its been no surprise to see them trading on the Grime "brand name". But is it the real thing? Fascinating perhaps, but I would say no, even if there are occasionally valuable detentes and collaborations between the two scenes can yield excellent records like Riko's "Popadomz" and D Double's "War Wid". Grime's true face is, though justifiably Dizzy's, also that of a gang of 4-dimensional hucksters; of voices so distinct you'd swear they were synthesised (D Double's "Mui Mui" chant, Trim's disarmingly dopey backward slanguage, Dogzilla's near-camp eyepopping outrage, Lethal B's pugged-into-the-grid delivery, Tinchy Stryder's lispy charm etc). It's the sound of a vernacular, frequently "endish", tripping into the light fantastic painting a blindingly vivid picture of life amid the blocks, of beefs, of friendships formed in shared adversity, of patient talent which refuses to quashed, of poetry and philosophy from the crucible of the street.

And yet it's increasingly the nth powers behind these words which makes the difference. Sure the MCs run the street, and they rule the pirate radio shows, but the producers are sliding surely into view, this in a sense a slow return to order, a reaffirmation of the producer's status in the Pirate Radio continuum. This year's undisputed pioneer has been Terrah Danjah whose Aftershock imprint has run 2004 with tracks like "So Sure" and "So Contagious" laying down new musical potentialities for the genre, positing an almost oriental-sounding R'n'B/Grime collision which may succeed in keeping the scene open to "the ladies" when sometimes its in danger of being a testosterone lockdown. Aftershock also laying down peerless MC tracks like "Bogeyman" and "Gansta Toys"

Again bestride the metropolis like a collossus is the Aim High camp, both Target, who can claim huge tunes Doogzilla's "STDs" and Riko's "The Chosen One" as his, and Danny Weed behind the fabulously-inventive ultra-bizarre riddims of yesteryear like "Rat Race" and red hot tracks like Donaeo's underrated "People Don't Know" and the soon-to-explode "Bad Boy Trim". It's an incredibly exciting time for Grime, and in the next six months, sealed by Wiley's brilliant Roll Deep LP, we'll surely see Grime settle into the unavoidably brilliant endlessly sustaining energy loop it's explosive beginnings have hinted at. Just don't EVER call it UK Hip-Hop.

Posted by WOEBOT at 12:00 PM | Permalink

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.

Posted by WOEBOT at 11:48 AM | Permalink