Ever since Mickey Tufluv's pioneering "bich-ass-muthafucka" breakthrough piece on DJ Screw:
http://tufluv.blogspot.com/2003_12_14_tufluv_archive.html
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I've been keen as hell to get my hands on the original DJ Screw artifacts.
First tactic was ask here what the best Screw was:
http://www.screweduprecords.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=349&PN=2
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The poll produced 5 clear winners:
_3 N'Da Morning
_No Drank
_Hard Times
_Killuminati
_Eintein
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Unfortunately the Screw shop:
http://www.screweduprecords.com/index.asp
didn't have them in stock.
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Through eBay I got in touch with this dude:
DATBOYPOLLO(at)aol.com
who was able to sell me them all.
Marco is sound but drive him down on the price of 3 N'Da Morning (ouch)
Direct from Houston Texas, the source.
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Over the past few days I've been listening to little else.
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DJ Screw is like Georg Baselitz (geezer who hangs pictures upside_down) he has a pungent iconoclastic trick (the french would say "truck") he slows all the tracks he spins to a molasses-engulfs-mexican-village pace. At once a superficial tactic and a window to a separate universe.
Don't believe Alvin Toffler! Our infolding present is as much a canvas for deceleration as acceleration. Ever waited 10 minutes on a phone tree? Ever spent 3 weeks on a 12 second shot for an Elton John commercial? Ever driven through town in a fast car at 4 miles per hour? Ever spent 2 hours downloading a bootleg application off the internet?
The idea that the future is heralded by quick music is misleading. Jungle reached a speed plateaux c.160bpm arriving at a langorous skanky double-time. Don't forget that the ULTIMATE prodigal future sonic oozed out of Trenchtown's makeshift studios in the 1970s.
"Speed it Up!" It's the cheesiest impact-effect available to the producer. Coleman Hawkins' solos pitched up a few notches become Charlie Parker's aspirational template. James Brown giving "Papa's Got a Brand New Bag" the requisite lift by a hike in tempo. Dave Edmunds speeding up Love Sculpture's "Sabre Dance." It's very similar to the cartoon artist's stock tactic of shrinking his drawings on the photocopier to increase their intensity.
Mixing slow is hard. Matching beats with a gulf of time between them is extremely difficult. I always found mixing Jungle much easier than (less forgiving) Techno. And those smudged "awkward" super-imposed harmonies you find in the mix: they're here, only foregrounded by their extended duration. As per Luke Vibert comments about the inherenently avant garde properties of detuned samples held together in a beat matrix. That quavery sound of a mix held in place by the DJ nudging one deck forward, neeling the spindle of the other to delay it. That loping off-centred "parabolic" sound writ large on the Boards of Canada recordings.
Took a break from the super-abstract k-hole trip-hop of 3 N'Da Morning (Screw slurring the intro and zero-velocity shout-outs to m_y__c_r_e_w__f_r_o_m__t_h_e__s_o_u_t_h_s_i_d_e) and listened to Gunshot's "Patriot Games" which seemed ABSURDLY involuted and packed with manic detail in contrast with Screw's anaemicised tundrascapes.
Delight at Screw's obliviousness to the Hip-Hop Nation. You'll hear ESG (No, not the shrill chicks!) Al D, Big Moe, Botany Boys and Mack 10 but only a little outside of the crunk cosmos. Snoop and Too $hort are as big as the names get. So like London's tiny self-obsessed Grime network! Loving especially the extended hand-tailored slow raps of _No Drank. "Aggravated Rasta" and "White Horse" off 3 N'Da Morning pt.1 where the pace lends shaded menace to the electro-flavoured synths and patois stylings. Quite astonished that it's taken me ten years to catch up with this tortoise: that in 1994 when we were hailing Tricky, Goldie and Gerald that Mr. Screw was totally (practically) unknown. R.I.P.
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I DO have archives!
http://www.woebotnik.com/trash/
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Hi to John Dubversion who is both writing super stuff here:
http://ill-conceived.blogspot.com/
and also facing unpleasant, unnecessary harassment from the fuzz.
Thinkin' of U dubV.