Been luxuriating in two C90s sent to me "in da post" by old Iron Chest Heronbone. His fave bits from his favourite shows. It's practically THE DOCUMENT of UK Garage you know. I'll bet in ten years this selection will still be circulating, seriously. This is the living s***. I've done my bit on the FM dial, but I'm always complaining to Luka, (adopts whine) "Luka?....Luka? I tuned in on Wednesday and it wasn't Roll Deep, it was Nigella Lawson on her favourite Bhangra tracks." or "I waited up for the East Connection show and they just played Polish Trance music." Luka has a radio with a golden dial. See when it comes down to it, with such volumes of sounds (and here i'm talking trans-generically) the selekta is EVERYTHING. Big up the Inkredible hulk himself.
First thing I came across which I hadn't heard and which blew me away was Dee from Nasty Crew's Birds in the sky. Orrsome. And actually I found a copy today. Its *NEW* in the shops. You guessed it its a SLOW 'un, hammering the shakuchai-meets-nasal-church-organ preset. Dee saving resources and doing the echo himself "fly fly fly fly". Choirs of loose women fill the studio. All hearteningly R.Kelly on hunger strike. N.A.S.T.Y. Crew, its an acronym you know, Natural Artistic Sounds Touching You.
Secondly, and I'm not going to delve into "The Stratford Tapes" in more detail until I've thoroughly digested them, but Luka has trapped that rare butterfly of a track which blew me away last November. With its "I Love" vocal hook and Ghosts-era Sylvian synth. And if it isn't a bloody Dizzy Rascal tune...I dunno, after all that to-ing and fro-ing. No not "I love you", but off the album I expect. Reynolds is still raving about the LP and we'll see if I can't get a listen off him this weekend.
The riddim which is bussin it right now is Jon E Cash's "Spain" on Black Ops. Its got this flamenco guitar which has been accelerated till it becomes a gothic flutter. Sped up to that point where a rhythm becomes a melody (all you Stockhausen fans).
Not forgetting to mention Simon Sez's "Golly Gosh", which may be a month or so old and tends to be caned for it's instrumental (an anaemic take on DMS's Ardkore classic "Dark Age") rather than the rap. Not peak Social Circles material, but another shovel of earth into the contenders' mass grave.
Finally the MC tune which does it for me now, not spectacular but righteously efficient and sporting an ace production (hey why not!), is MC Dilemma's "What's my name?", your standard Mantronix bleep formation but chunkier with rounder edges and more space. Great unfrilly rap. Lavely!
Posted by Woebot at June 26, 2003 08:21 PM