| hearing this evokes the kind of feelings and wild imagery that
kids in the 30s must have felt the first time they heard jazz, or
swing, or that drum solo kick in. hell, it was once said that 'it
don't mean a thing if it ain't got that swing', whoever said this
was right. 'dessert search for techno baklava' has to be my
favourite track of the moment. with scattered blasts of snare
rhythms that kick you in the spleen to make you move and all of the
wildly exotic taste of my favourite lebanese cafe 'taste of arabia'.
indeed, this music rolls into the ears as smoothly as the phonetic
pleasure of the word 'sahara' rolls off the tongue.
for the technically affiliated and pale of face, this record has
everything from repetitive beats to gabba-chops to ardent use of
granular synthesis. you'll like the track 'backyardwrestling', i do.
with a salient mash up of d'n'b timing, the track plays like a
pissed robot wailing 'i will kick your ass with little or no
provocation numb nuts'. ancient archaic samples of spoken word are
to be found right from the beginning of the record, whilst the music
is such that you may very well find yourself acting like a
spazz/mong/freak/nutcase at any given time with the perfectly
rational explanation that "yo, it's just boogie-ing."
albeit i hate myself for saying it, there are definitive richard
d. james moments strewn across this record, there's aaron funk in
places and a touch of mutamassik (big up) in others. however, other
than my bland comparison, can there possibly be anything wrong with
a reiteration of contemporary musical genius? especially as this is
not plagiarism, no! this is a record made by a group who have been
star-crossed with sitting in front of a computer screen, but have
created something which is as potent as licking an a1 page of
micro-dots, bring on the hallucinations....
reviewed by ralph cowling
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