Thanks to SilverDollar for the tapes. Particularly interesting for me was the Logan Sama show Simon taped. Sama has a weekly slot on Rinse 100.3 FM on Friday between 7 and 9 when he plays what are now definitively described as "Vocal" tunes. As an adherent of the discipline of 4 minute concepts on wax, and someone who finds even the best open mic sessions a bit off-putting hearing this show, "the biggest vocal tune show on the FM dial" was quite a revelation.
Logan Sama has quite slyly carved himself a niche as the Stretch Armstrong of Grime. I say slyly because I reckon the grassroots heat around Grime is essentially around the live on-air MC clashes. As I've often remarked, the shops, until quite recently that is, have tended to serve as receptacles for the DJ's 8-bar rhythms, the sub lo backing tracks. For a long time it seemed that only Sticky (no longer a force to be reckoned with incidentally) took the form of the record seriously. But if Grime is to have a future it'll have to address this, note for example Wiley's shift from producing things like the Ice Rink EPs (2 12"s of MCs ride the same rhythm) to his generally more focused auteurish slant of late.
The great thing about the Logan Sama show, and I tried to catch it this Friday but came straight home from work and got stuck into my usual duties, is the sheer brilliance of the tracks. All these tunes he spins are absolutely amazing! In terms of the fecundity of the scene I reckon we're approaching the improbable quality of the hardcore scenius between 1991 and 1993 when "classic" followed "classic" What really caught my ears amongst the selection were an as yet untitled (?) Dogzee tune in which our hero recounts the tale of an evening in which he attends a boring party and necks some LSD. He ends up talking to Freddie Mercury! It's too insane and completely captures the disorientating scrabbling around one does off ones tits at parties. Between this, Dogzee's "STDs" and his "Back to School" we're witnessing someone with a whole heap of range.
Also astonishing is Roll Deep's "Shake Your Leg" which it's too easy to dismiss as a novelty track, a music-hall cum ska pastiche the backing track is luridly psychedelic, evidence of the kind of leftfield chances Grime's producers are willing to take, I guess following the notional signpost of Danny Weed's "Rat Race" rhythm. Danny also did the superb gypsy rhythm off of the Aim High Vol1 comp, so maybe this is one of his? Apparently this will be on the Roll Deep LP.
Picked up some tracks too. Wonder and Kano's "What Have You Done", quite rightly praised to the sky by Kode9 chez lui, the slightly time-stretched agonising diva a handy way of dovetailing Grime's recent R'n'B inflections into rave-tasm. Kano is plump and surly. He's efficient Kano, but he's not exactly colourful. Ruff Squad's "Anna", which has a great, quite blokey tough abstract vibe to it, but not much in the way of a hook, and their "XTC Function out Da Low" rhythm which is nice. Both releases slightly marred by that cheap parping synth sound one gets in Swizz Beatz's productions and a lot of electro. I have a difficult relationship with those tones, and still yet to be convinced by "The Squid." Finally the rhythm to Wiley's "Bastard" which Cameo seemed to think was by Geeneus. And STOP PRESS, presented here as a version screwed down to 33.
Posted by Woebot at September 5, 2004 08:47 AM