uncarved.org blog

Butterz.co.uk – Is BACK!: 6 Months in Grime.

Blackdown: LDN011 Grievous Angel. (check this link for audio and full details)

Two big tunes from my man Paul Meme coming out on Blackdown’s seminal Keysound label.

Side A is a remix of Naphta’s Soundclash from the wicked “Long Time Burning” album.

Flip is more abstract wonky business.

Promo sounds fat as you like. Check.

Clean living in difficult circumstances.

See also this great new blog by a sarf London voodoo practitioner, who has some interesting things to say about Paul’s Devotional Dubz label.

Voodoo and Santeria aren’t discussed that much in my end of the afro-futurist neighbourhood, I guess because they are not exactly de rigeur for black Muslims or Rastafarians. Certainly the Obeah man (or sorceror) comes in for some proper stick in reggae.

So equally interesting to get the above t-shirt from grime crew Roll Deep as one of my birthday presents recently…

I’m far too rationalist these days to believe in this stuff, or even to believe that believing in it would serve any useful function for me personally. But it is undoubtedly an interesting social phenomenon (his says in his dusty library, peering over some specs like Professor Yaffle). Certainly afro-centric magick has a history of spooking the fuck out of colonial types and so can be seen as a slightly bizarre part of the resistance against slavery.

Plus Lady Erzulie Freda Dahomey sounds pretty awesome and you can’t argue with a guy who follows up his erudite musings with this:

I’ve been a bit at odds with the dubstep scene myself ever since I encountered difficulty getting into FWD cos I was wearing a pale grey suit with an early 60s cut, which was at odds with their unofficial dress code of scruffy bastard in a washed out grey hoodie. Fortunately, retro tailoring won out over shit Gap t-shirts and combats, as it always will, and they let me in anyway.

The other night was a blast. I was gutted about missing the film (and the ensuing Q+A), but managed to hook up with Mr Grievous Angel (whose new funky tune is imminent) and Mr STN and posse for the party at the Rhythm Factory.

I have to say I was in two minds about coming out on a Tuesday night to an event which hadn’t exactly been promoted to the fullest. But it was worth it.

Adrian Sherwood manned the decks first, using some serrato or laptop or new fangled tricknology. Also some bashy syndrum stuff which then looped into the mix. Nice selection including Shaggy’s “Stricly Rub a Dub” and a mash up of Max Romeo’s Chase the Devil instrumental with the vocals from the Beatles’ “Day In The Life”. Also some mad jungle mash ups including The Congo’s “Congoman”. He did great considering the place was half full and nobody was really ‘aving it. A work night, we all agreed “the main worry’s job security“… Sherwood feeds some Mark Stewart vocals into the mix. Except it then emerges that it’s the man himself on the mic, hidden away at the side of the stage.

Kevin Martin takes to the stage and ramps up the volume and intensity, tweaking the controls so he can mess with our heads. It’s been too long and the arrival of both Flowdan and Ricky Ranking heralds yet another leap in levels. Mark Stewart also MCs over some Bug beats. The audience responds in kind, the gaps near the stage fill up, bizarrely a load more girls seem to appear from nowhere. We all ended up staying much longer than we’d intended. Things like that interfere with my work life balance. Heh.

More Simon Reynolds than you can shake a stick at special:

1) Video podcast of ‘ardkore continuum presentation in Liverpool.

2) Simon on musique concrete and post punk on Johnny Mugwump’s Resonance FM show.

3) Online versions of his six articles for The Wire from ‘ardkore to grime.

Public enemy no 696
Are the police using their ‘risk-assessment’ form 696 to close down grime and garage clubs?

Dan Hancox in the Guardian today, updating his piece in Woofah issue 2.

Too much happening with Grime this year for me to provide anything like a proper roundup.

I can’t even say with any honesty that I’ve had a chance to properly check out everything I’ve bought or downloaded. Which is good – an embarrassment of riches instead of slim pickings.

One of my resolutions for 2009 is to try and listen to stuff deeper, rather than amass a bigger and bigger backlog.

Mixtapes

All of these are fully endorsed on the basis of great “killer to filler” ratio:

1) Nasty Jack – Shotta Music

2) Trim – Soulfood 3

3) Wiley – Grimewave

4) Jammer – Are You Dumb 3

5) Dot Rotten – Young Dot RIP

6) Tinchy Stryder – Cloud 9 EP

7) Jammer – Are You Dumb 4

Lots of stuff bubbling under, but the seven above are the ones I keep coming back to again and again. Feel free to kick of a row about my choices and omissions in the comments boxes.

Vinyl

Honorary mention to Logan Sama’s Earth 616 label for keeping grime vinyl alive, but the crown this year goes to one label in my humble opinion:

Silverlink feat Jammer and Badness – The Message is Love (No Hats No Hoods 12″)

Rude Kid – Are You Ready? (No Hats No Hoods 12″)

Ruff Sqwad – RSMD (No Hats No Hoods 12″)

Downloads

Just proper mixes and releases here, there are untold radio shows and other bits to get drowned in:

John Eden + Grievous Angel – Grime in the Dancehall (Blogariddims)

Boy Better Know – Microphone Champion vol 1

Logan Sama – One Away Style

Wiley vol 1 (grimetapes)

D Double E (grimetapes)

igrime vol1 – Logan Sama and Durrty Goodz (Aza T)

“Raggamuffin Nasty Jack inna de area, me a true grime star…”

Don’t tell the better half, but by my reckoning I have bought 14 grime mixtapes this year. The imminent release of the 4th installments of both Jammer’s “Are You Dumb?” and Trim’s “Soulfood” will surely increase this total (and we’d better not mention the numerous 12″ purchases either…)

It’s rare for me to get sent a Grime Promo CD – and rarer still for it to be any good. But when Nasty Jack’s “Shotta Music” turned up just after we’d put Woofah issue 3 to bed, I had high expectations.

We’re talking pedigree here – learning one’s trade in N.A.S.T.Y. Crew and some infamous lyrical beef with Wiley. Jack’s “My Name Is” 7″ on Adamantium was one of last year’s highlights – proper raggamuffin grime which was cruelly expunged from the grime in the dancehall Blogariddims mix – purely because Paul Meme and I had so much great material… and something had to go.

“Shotta Music” is essentially a UK ragga album – many of the riddims feature sparse drum and overdriven bass, soundsystem style. High-octane war lyrics and party rhymes abound. On “Sandakarn” Nasty Jack gives thanks and praise to Ninjaman, Nicodemus and Super Cat and pays tribute to the 90s JA deejay style. This is followed by Stormin’s ganja-fuelled take on the same riddim – a proper treat for all version excursionists.

I played the “Skyjuice riddim” on RSI Radio 3 and you can hear it on Nasty’s Myspace. I’ve also bigged it up in FACT Magazine’s “Tunes of The Week” – seems like they agree with my assessment cos they’ve put it in at number 2. The tune features Flowdan, Skepta and Teddy Brukshut alongside Nasty Jack and is outrageous – get to know.

“My Name Is” also features on the CD (I’m guessing that the seven inch is now pretty hard to come by) as do long awaited tunes like “Burn You”. Brukshut and Stormin’ bust out their best rhymes. There is some great interplay between rockstone gruffness and the occasional sprinkling of melody. Oh yeah and dubstep fans will love the vocalling of Zombie’s “One Spliff A Day” relick.

Apparently the forums have featured some rumblings of discontent about Kiss FM DJ Logan Sama hosting the album, but his vocal introductions are unobtrusive and I find them pretty entertaining myself. Oh yeah, apparently some versions of the CD release include a bonus CD of instrumentals, so watch out for that.

A lot of JA music seems to be in the midst of an uninspiring phase for me recently, so it’s been a relief that so many exceptional UK (and outernational) releases are filling that vacuum this year. Do yourself a favour and check this one out.

The Murkle Man speaks to Tom Lea

Previously in the Blogariddms #50 tag team throwndown: Nomos.

June 2006 - October 2008

Quiet and hooded, his eyes stared out,
small hands make patterns on the window.
Body shifting on wood, dog outside the door,
flickering memories as trains manoeuvre
in old men’s eyes.

So, farewell to Blogariddims – retiring at the sprightly age of fifty episodes.

The whole thing was Droid’s project and the way he has managed to get it out on a regular basis and dealt with some, ah… eccentric people proves that the fine art of herding cats is alive and well in Dublin. He leaves behind him as a legacy an archive of over 50 hours of excellent, inspiring and engaging music. Respect is more than due.

Actually I’m a bit humbled by how many of these Droid let me contribute, what with my cack-handed mixing and lack of IT savvy and general grumpiness. Here is the rundown:

4: Dancehall Pressure – with Paul Meme (additional commentary here)

12: Office Party Mix (tracklist here)

19: Bounce Me Back To 98 (commentary here)

40: Grime In The Dancehall – with Paul Meme

In fact, looking back over the archives there are so many highlights it’s really hard to single anything out for newcomers – if you haven’t subscribed, you’re in for a real treat here.

Of course Heatwave’s “An England Story” is the obvious success story – a podcast so good that Soul Jazz turned it into a quadruple album. But alongside that you have some genuinely out there, thought provoking stuff from Soundslike1981 or Droid & Slug. Or Mr Bump’s Rude Interlude, or some actually pretty amazing stuff on the fringes of dubstep, or some more reggae biz from Matt B and Dave Stelfox.

Blogariddims is like a lucky dip grab bag of music which has all your favourites guaranteed, but also some stuff you never thought of checking before.

The final Blogariddims Brock Out Bonanza features the return of many contributors – Paul Meme and myself (but basically Paul this time, for reasons too tedious to go into) have contributed a mix up of instrumental grime, echoing our previous Grime In The Dancehall special.

We are preceded in the mix by the lovely Paul Autonomic, whose commentary on his selection is characteristically top notch.

Next in the chain of blogposts is Paul Meme, so I will let the Grievous Angel himself explain his mixing tricknology and tracklist more fully.

But I think this the point for me to say what should be obvious by now – I got into Grime because of the MC-ing and lyrical skills, but slowly got seduced by the incredible sounds and beats along the way. In some ways Grime seems much less hamstrung by formulae than dubstep. Sure there are particular sounds in the palette and occasionally the textures are predictable, but because Grime (like dancehall) has always been so MC focussed, the producers are more free to just chuck stuff around and see what works.

Details of the final (sniff…) Blogariddims here: http://www.weareie.com/2008/10/blogariddims-50-terminus.html

Go and download it at your earliest convenience. And then (re)check the other 49…

We featured Young Dot in Woofah issue 1’s feature on upcoming Grime MCs, but we missed something then which fits so nicely into the Woofah worldview that I’m kicking myself now.

Young Dot subsequently mutated into Dot Rotten, and killed off his former incarnation with the excellent “RIP Young Dot” mixtape. It’s one of my favourite grime releases of the year so far, resolutely sinister, downbeat and almost veering into the gothic territory of Wu-Tang.

After I’d played the CD a few times I checked the sleevenotes, and there it was:

“Special Thanks To Dennis Rowe”

I froze. And smiled. WIDE.

Dennis Rowe… fuck. Dennis Rowe is the don – manager of Saxon Studio International, UK soundsystem legend. The man who oversaw the first serious outbreak of the UK MC virus.

Was it the same one? How did that happen? So many questions.

Fortunately the man like Blackdown has answers – in this extenisive interview with Dot Rotten.

I’m not gonna post the juicy bits here, check out the whole thing…