Old school stalwarts Ramsay & Fen deliver two cuts that show they haven’t lost the fire. “What You Want” is the pick, in which a vocalist makes like a male Beyonc? over some clever beats; stabbing strings and 2-step’s trademark bump & flex mix with some darker breakbeat bass noises for a creative club stormer. “Playboy” on the flip finds the crew working their magic with a pumping 4/4 rinse.
David Toop Black Chamber
David Toop makes the kind of music you’d expect from someone who recorded for Eno’s Obscure imprint, writes essential books like Ocean Of Sound, and contributes to The Wire. His aesthetic is uniquely eclectic and exotic, intelligently designed, conceptually rigorous and ambient in the best way. That he’s creating music this challenging (and disturbing) 30 years into his recording career testifies to both his fecund imagination, and to masterly collaborators like Tom Recchion, Lol Coxhill and Terry Day. Toop’s best album since 1996’s Pink Noir, Black Chamber explores and exploits sound’s molecular structure with a scientist’s acuity and a mystic’s wonder.
Deadly Avenger Deep Red
What do Big Beat producers do when their genre becomes history? Some naturally try film scoring. Damon Baxter shows he’s serious about soundtracking on Deep Red-a 47-piece Hungarian orchestra can’t be cheap. Despite Baxter’s grandiose ambitions and innate funkiness, Deep Red comes off more as pastiche than inspired creation. Virtually every gesture here sounds overly familiar. The 13-track disc takes a nosedive in quality after the fourth cut, overdosing on pompous, “melancholy strings and turgid exoticism.” It’s cool to pay homage to composers like Schifrin, Hayes, Oldfield, Morricone and Quincy Jones, but some originality wouldn’t hurt.
A GRAPE DOPE Missing Dragons Ep
Even more than fellow Tortoise drummer John McEntire, John Herndon has been a key player in Chicago’s bustling post-rock/electronic-jazz scenes. Going solo as A Grape Dope, Herndon flexes his precise programming and quirky percussion chops to excitingly diverse effect over this EP’s six tracks. Action: Showered Us” splutters out of the gate like a sloshed Squarepusher rupturing out-jazz and drill & bass, while “Red Hot Attack” (with Anticon’s Doseone) puts odd Windy City torque to Dirty South hip-hop. Elsewhere, AGD embraces slow-burning digital soul, Microstoria-esque reveries, happy-go-lucky future funk, and a bizarrely tranquil East Asian folk/IDM hybrid.
Max Sedglley The EP
Breakbeat Era/Reprazent drummer Sedgley slows the tempo of his day-job bands in order to go solo as a producer, and the man’s got undeniable diversity happening here. Between the brazenly chunky non-clich?d blaxploitation funk of “Happy” to the perky, digi-soulful and two-stepping “Two-Way” and the rich downtempo steez of “Slowly,” Sedgley leaves us thirsting for more.
Stateless Bringin’ Me Down Remixes
Andreas Saag tosses a bluesy, keyboard-infused semi-broken 4/4 cut from his Art of No State album to the house winds on two slabs from London’s Freerange label. On one, Saag laces the b-side of the original with an ’80s-style house rub, while the other disc finds Desha rolling the nu-jazz and Kaidi “Agent K” Tatham doin’ that early New York disco thing.
Various The Remix EP
Darqwan spotlights his dubstep imprint by putting his “Nocturnal” into the hands of remixer Geeneus, who keeps the bass rumble intact while toughening up the drumbeat. After darkening the wah-bass melody of his own breakstep jam, “Said the Spider,” ‘qwan spotlights Markone, who gives his own “Tribesmen” an electro-fied, subterranean rub. As they used to tell Baryshnikov: nice package.
Tajai The Dum-Dum
Two of Oakland’s Souls of Mischief go monster-mashin’. Tajai lays down some of that intense,” forward-lookin make-it-happen-rappin'” over A-Plus’s hot, Chinese violin-tinged beat on the title track, then over Skitzo’s stressed, almost technofied rhythm on the flip’s “Who Got It?” With an album on tap, Taj throws down the gauntlet inna hardcore style.
Larry Heard Space Jungle
Twenty years on, Mr. Fingers remains on track. The title track here is slowed-down, understated and freaky, alive with quirky synths and tabla beats. The flip’s “D?j? Vu” runs similarly opaque, with effects on the vocals that enhance the generally ambiguous atmosphere. The man’s still innovating in this young’un’s game in middle age-we tip our hats.
Psychokinetics The Vault
Oakland’s DJ/producer/MC quartet Psycho-kinetics brings a uniquely American notion to d&b/rhyme praxis, eschewing British MCs’ skibba-dibba styles for some half-time insights. On this EP from last year’s Sensory Descent album, MCs Celsius and Spidey hit you with tight verbals over Denizen and Ill Media’s melodic arrangements. Jump on this.
