Penny fills an enormous void in hip-hop: sexy feminine lyricism that’s as aggressive experimental as it is easily accessible. With a clean delivery like Ladybug from Digable Planets, she could just rely on the watery-smooth grain of her voice, yet she finesses the beat with all types of twisty intonations, changing paces with the quick flip of a word. Her style is steeped in Anticon weird abstraction-which, as always, teeters on falling flatly pretentious-but it’s her matter-of-factness that suggests, like a DoseOne, she really might be that strange. Throw in some equally interesting Anticon-like production, and this Penny album is just about brilliant.
Various Artists Broklyn Beats 7 Series
It seems NYC hasn’t been content to stop at the noisy aggression of El-P’s percussion, but instead appears to have befriended Alec Empire and Digital Hardcore based on this collection of dirty, rugged, industrial, chaotic beats. From droney hip-hop to tidbits of driven drum & bass buried beneath a million tons of sonic sludge to head-banging, sample-heavy gabber militancy, Broklyn Beats leaves no rhythm safe, as the likes of I-Sound, DJ /rupture and Rotator deliver enough sonic damage to bring the toughest rave-torn warrior down. Though its been done before, we all need reminders of the power of noise.
Total Science Pop Psychology EP
Total Science roll on with their CIA label, lacing their third “limited” remix 12 by giving over their emotive “Zanzibar” for a tense remix by Zero Tolerance & Beta 2, while on the flip, Baron injects even more obnoxious buzz into a remix of his own “Meet the Creeper.” The real news is TS’s “Pop Psychology” EP, which offers four more slices of top-notch soulful roll, touched variously by old-school chord stabs, jazz-funk samples, cyber-brutality and gorgeous editing craft. Still fresh.
Illskills Forgive Myself
On the original of this one, Austria’s Dkay and Rawfull come up with a tasty combination of gentle yet grounded female vocals, lovely melodic keyboard melodies, and semi-ravey synth stabs over a festival of “Apache” breaks. So why has Dkay’s overdramatic, unecessarily built-up remix of the tune landed on the A-side? Please, next time leave well enough alone and hit us with another track.
Chris Watson Star Switch On
Unusually, Star Switch On features the sounds of large grouse and goat-herders, nocturnal birds and death-watch beetles. Chris Watson’s lead instrument is his tape recorder: a former member of Cabaret Voltaire, Watson now specializes in natural history sound recording for radio, film and TV. Watson has previously released a pair of remarkable, Bjork-feted albums-Stepping Into The Dark and Outside The Circle Of Fire-featuring his untreated wildlife recordings. For this release, his sound sources were offered to electronic illuminati like Biosphere, AER, Fennesz and Mika Vainio for processing. Though Watson’s material is distanced from its original specific location, atmosphere and subject matter, his sound recordings nevertheless prompt a series of fascinating and compelling re-workings.
Various Artists Miss Kitten Presents: Radio Caroline Volume 1
“I will never stop dancing,” declares Ms Kittin (a.k.a. Caroline Herve) midway through her first widely available mix-CD, “How can you be a DJ if you don’t shake your ass in the middle of the crowd?” This collection seems intended to subtly recalibrate our expectations of the French DJ and vocalist: Kittin’s breathy vocals have previously decorated electroclash records by the Hacker and Felix Da Housecat, but on this release, she looks to funky electro, minimalist house and abstract techno from the likes of Delarosa & Asora, Autechre, Kinesthesia and Panasonic for her kicks. Radio Caroline Volume 1 affirms the mix compilation as manifesto and autobiography as well as archival artefact. For the most part, it’s an absorbing mix. Ironically, Kittin’s attempt to assert her personality by adding commentary to her selection of tracks occasionally breaks the spell.
Marc Deon Free Fall Rmxs
San Francisco-based Marc Deon brings us a versatile EP with remixes by Chad Mitchell, Tapio Schnaars and Audiovoid. Audiovoid’s remix brings a bumpin’, tech-trance flavor to the track. Lindsey Green goes with a minimal approach, but I keep waiting for something to grab me about it. The tech-housey mix by Chad funks it out solidly, while Tapio works it into a deep, pretty groove with jazzy elements.
El Presidente HI-FI Available
The title track finds El Presidente Hi-Fi working it out with a tasteful, yet booty-shaking tech-house groove, with Latin percussion that leads to a solid breakdown laced with a horn-section riff. The flip’s harder kicking tech-house jam juxtaposes the violent vocal sample, “put the fucking guns down,” with a grooving, polyrhythmic arrangement.
Twerk Motala
Always pushing the minimal envelope and producing quality, Twerk gives birth to some sweet yet intricate, beat-driven, dub-glitch tracks on Context’s 11th release, along with a beautiful ambient piece entitled “as innocent as they come.” Topping it off, Context is donating all proceeds from the sale of this record to the International Campaign to Ban Landmines.
Pest Necessary Measures
New Ninja five-piece Pest deliver their debut album, and despite the rumors, this is not nearly as groundbreaking or different as you’ll be led to believe. Sounding like “mental” jazz-break-stealing magpies-but with live instruments-Pest take great delight in mangling grooves from funk, punk, and jazz into some unholy collage. This collage, though, bears all the hallmarks of someone constantly asking “wouldn’t it be funny if..?” Which is all very well for a single, but doesn’t work for a long player. Necessary Measures sounds like Coldcut in a bad mood, or possessed by an unexplainable fit of student japery, which is potentially interesting on paper, but less so in practice.
