WOEBOT

Grime it is.

Image of Roger Gray used without permission.

Wow! Everybody feign interest! The time has come for one of my half-arsed poorly researched Garage Breakouts! Yay!

I got a really interesting job the other day editing a film about gun culture for a pitch to the government. I managed to sneak "Cockback" onto the soundtrack (snicker). One of the people who was interviewed in the course of the project was a white-haired gentleman called Roger Gray. Gray is a hugely influential gentleman who advises the government on issues affecting urban youth. He sits on about every quango and wotsit you might care to unearth. Important dude...

Anyway here is a comment he made I've rescued from the cutting-room floor:

"There's no doubt there's a genuine vacuum in the youth community now especially among the core alienated youth who themselves have kind of "gone cold." They've lost the feeling at the centre of them because for years they've been abused by their parents and other adults who've neglected them and leave them outside what they feel is the warm cosy world in which everyone else lives."

Hmph. Sobering stuff. When I heard him say it in the edit my heart skipped a beat; here was a figure endorsed by the government who was saying the same thing as Wiley was saying in Martin Clark's interview with him at Hyperdub. I felt as distant a satellite to this culture as I ever have.

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It's been a mighty slow start to the year vinyl-wise. Word is that the pressing-plants have been slow to get up-to-speed. I've even resorted to picking up last year's tracks which are still in the racks.

More Fire/Lethal B: Roll Wid Da Fire

Like this stonker, built (I believe) on the same riddim the Neptunes made for Busta Rhymes's "Light Your Ass on Fire," you know the one with splintering cheap-sounding pitch-shifted drums. Lethal B and the boys are gradually picking themselves up and rebuilding their confidence after being dropped by a major. On the "Lord of the Decks" interview they give (Lethal B performs this track after it in the cheapest-looking pop video I have *EVER* seen) they seem a bit "sotto voce" as my Dad would have said.

Platinum 45/More Fire: Lava Riddim

More recent More Fire bizness. (thinks, this lot are on top form). This has the eyeball-bulging intensity of slightly unlistenable tracks from last year like Jammer's "Destruction." I was really pleased to see Marcello talking about the joylessness of Garage. He IS right, but there's no underestimating the uncontained excitement these tracks manifest. As I've said before, Grime (for "Wot Do You Call it?" arf arf arf) functions along the axis of intensity. The more intense the better. Lethal B outing his "Lethal B got a Colt 45" lyric here.

Beenie Man: Dude (Sticky Refix)

Dear oh dear! What HAS happened to Sticky. He's definitely lost the plot, chasing record company remixes and thriving on a kind of down-market respectability, lots of R'n'B vocals lacing his tracks. I keep waiting to hear a bit of shock-out from the Social Circles camp, but alas... However this is easily the best thing I've heard from him in ages, and the only thing I've picked up. Though will that Ms.Thing puhlease shut it!!! Can't stand her moany voice...

Highly Flammable: Charge

What the hell's going on here? A twelve inch with.....a cover! Artwork on this reminiscent of the DJ Trax Infinite Hype cover on Moving Shadow (that'll get Simon salivating!) An all-star line-up: D Double E, Meridian, More Fire, Heartless, Roll Deep, Ruff Squad (Tinchy Stryder rising high), Boyz in Da Hood etc. And an extraordinary polemic on the rear sleeve note by Highly Flammable announcing: "Highly Flammable are now in full effect, we've been dealing with issues outside music but now we're ready to give 100% apose (their spellung) to 50%." Mysterious stuff. Nice track.

Ruff Squad: Pied Piper Riddim (feat RS, Riko and Escobar)

Ruff.

Unknown White: Get Over It.

Aaah! Saving this best to last! This is some kind of classic. The riddim is a cut up of Mephis Bleek's "Is that your Chick", which must surely set the standard for most frozen bit of Hip Hop evah, a tune I heard caned at Eskimo Dance last year (reeeeeeeewiiinnndddd!!!!!!!) But it's spliced together with these phantasmic uncoiling mentasm mirages straight out of The Mover's songbook. Truly breathtaking riddim, the MC-ing with shades of Kool Keith-style surgical imagery. "Stripped to the bone" etc. Awesome. No idea who did it!

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Everybody laughed at me when I said Google Eskimo Dance and see what you get, but ha! The last laugh is on me. One of my most continually updated comments box threads is this one. Bloody hell some of these comments are coming from the other side of the tracks! Maybe I'm not such a distant satellite after all...

Posted by Woebot at March 9, 2004 01:15 AM