He's begged me to keep a lid on it for the past few weeks while he slaved on the overdubs with Zeb, but with the arrival of a 12" shaped brown box containing it this morning, it looks like I can tell the world. Luke has made a record. "Beatfarm" credited to Luka.
I tell you I was as keen to check it as I expect you are. On first play it was suprising to actually hear the man's voice for a change. He's a gruff wee bastard! I suppose I was expecting a kind of indie-garage thing, you know a kind of John Cooper Clarke meets Roll Deep thing, an update on the pre-existing trope/tradition of beatniks recycling the piratical airwaves, a Rebuilt Kev/Squarepusher/Fridge/Mike Skinner styling on the ardkore tradition. A "de-thugging" if you like but you know Luke, its a fuck of a lot madder than that, maybe enjoying the same kind of relationship Tricky did with straight hip-hop. I know he's gonna be bloody mad with me for not reading it as HARDCORE pure and simple, but Luke you symbolist poetry espousing nutter, it just don't work like that.
"Blood on the tyres, blood in my eyes; blood in the drains, bloods my disguise". Street surrealism at it's most opaque, deliberate obfuscation but in no way a knowing dumbing-down. "Dali, Charlie, Mallarme the life O'Reilly- that's (my) tradition, my root (route?) shoot." Its peppered with shouts to Scoob and the boys "Down with the Stratford crew, I'm the poet without a cue." Bizarre shit.
If I'd have one reservation it's the beats. Zeb is no Wiley, he hasn't offered up the botch job DJ Ninj did for Derek Bailey on his jungle record, but things are a bit loose. Not nashty enough. I'd like to hear Luke on Icerink, something he could really get his rhymes biting. Like I say a minor criticism. Don't give up yet Zeb.
On the press-sheet Luka says they're will only be 500 whites. Snap em up and be a part of history.
Posted by Woebot at April 8, 2003 01:46 PM