uncarved.org blog

The unintentionally hilarious comment below from a neo-nazi has reminded me that I haven’t mentioned this essential new release from Soul Jazz.

If you’ve been following this blog and the mixes I’ve done for the last few years, you’ll know that I think the history of UK MC culture has been massively under-exposed - this is fantastic start to redressing that error.

The album is compiled by the comrades over at The Heatwave and is based on their excellent blogariddims mix.

Full review to follow in the next issue of The Wire, but do yourself and favour and grab your copy now - you won’t regret it. If there is a release more important than this in 2008 I will be very surprised.

The album also functions as a beautiful antidote to the socially constructed concept of “whiteness” that my correspondent seems so keen on.

Full tracklist and samples at the Soul Jazz site.

Time Out feature.

Gutterbreakz: TEN RECORDS HIDING AT THE BACK OF YOUR COLLECTION THAT NO GROWN MAN SHOULD OWN

Ah.

Yeahhhhhhhh. Fanbwoy time again! Ha ha. He just keeps getting better and better I think. Skeng seemed almost impossible to top, but this latest release does actually manage that by broadening out a bit rather than going for the sledgehammer blow. Two twelve inches this time which lets Kevin Martin exercise his collaborative inclinations to the max. “Networking” has a horrible image of false grins and business cards offered in sweaty palms, but actually creating networks like those around the “Ambient” comps for Virgin, and his work with GOD, and of course at BASH, is “scenius” in action. Drawing dissidents together to plot and form new cells of resistance…

Warrior Queen is her usual uncompromising self and any hyperbole I write here is kind of redundant in the face of the video above - how cool is it to see a label getting properly behind this stuff and giving it a bit of audio/visual push?

The Skream remix ramps up the dubstep disco wobble bizness and comes across a lot cleaner than the original. I’m sure it sounds great over a big system mixed in with something else which has a slightly different wobble, but it kind of defeats the object of a Bug record for home listening in my book. Something for the young people, ha ha!

My promo doesn’t have the full Flowdan vocal mix on it, dammit, but there are snippets from it in DJ Baku’s megamix and they sound well up to Flo’s usual level of rapid fire malevolence: “Would it be wise to mess with the big money sound? … No I don’t think so. SHUT UP!” Baku seriously disrupts the juggernaut flow with his(?) turntablism - Warrior Queen and Flo come in and out of the mix in a ghostly duet. The slowly increasing sense of dread becomes more fragmented - you don’t know where the danger is coming from.

I’m also gaging to hear the South Rakkas Crew remix - the people who brought you the Bionic Ras and Red Alert acieeed dancehall riddims, talk about spoilt for choice…

Twelve 1

Twelve 2

Digital bundle release (including Skeng!) to follow…

If you really think that “all JA seems to produce these days is drum-machine driven electro drivel with lyrics about busta-this and bling-that and batty-bwoy the other.” then you definitely need to check this one out:

Pure consciousness and niceness, 21st Century JA roots and reality reggae in the traditional style. Five highlights include:

Alborosie -   “Rastafari Anthem” - this is a guy who hasn’t put a foot wrong in 2007 and you can tell 2008 is going to be his year. Seriously. You could do worse than to go out and buy any 7″ you can find with his name on…

Lutan Fyah - “Save The Juvenile” - excellent upbeat tune in which Lutan demands that the badmen stop their badness and look after the next generation.

Nesbeth - “Board House” - the sad story of a rubbish day in which Nes’ house burns down as during gang war crossfire and his woman walks out on him. Is it miserable? Is it bollocks - proper grimacing through the pain before heading off to get shitfaced stuff.

Taurus Riley - “Pretect Your Neck” - proper old school skanking bizness, presumably inspired by Wu-Tang but you wouldn’t know it.

Mr Easy - “Strangest Thing” - Easy gets pulled over by the police for his weed, and just to rub it in, Mykal Rose is singing about his “stalk of sensimiella” in the background.

There are 18 tracks on the CD so everyone will have their own favourites (and my will change tomorrow). Some lightweight girl tunes included, but basically it’s a wicked roundup of 2007 seven inch releases (and probably some that never came out).

Plus it’s a double set - you get a DVD thrown in with some nice promos (Lutan and Nesbeth especially) and a short Alborosie documentary.

available on CD (£8.99) and mp3 (55p per track) direct from Greensleeves. Check the link for soundsamples as well.

Or add it to yer Amazon wish list for xmas, innit.

My top ten for 2007 will follow in another place shortly.

Uncarved presents one hour and 23 minutes of music and commentary for your downloading pleasure!

Without giving too much away, this installment of RSI Radio is more eclectic than the debut. Fans of the first edition will be relieved to hear that I am less mumbly this time.

Comments welcome! People suffering from slow ‘net connections should get in touch and ask to be sent a CDR of the show.

 

 John Eden presents: RSI Radio vol2 part a [45:14m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

 

 John Eden presents: RSI Radio vol2 part b [38:04m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Razor X Productions - Killing Sound (Rephlex double LP)

“Made in Babylon”

Razor X was the label for the original collaborations between Kevin Martin (The Bug) and the Rootsman (UK veteran reggae producer and ex-member of Iration Steppas sound - see also the post below). These productions leaked out on very limited 7″ over a few years and laid down the blueprint for The Bug’s subsequent trajectory…

This compilation has been a long time coming, and has been much anticipated by the thousands of people who bought Pressure. Killing Sound is a an all-out assault compared to Pressure’s rollercoaster ride of peaks and troughs.

The first track is “Killer”, the original Razor X opening barrage, but with Warrior Queen on vocal duties instead of the unavailable He-Man. Can Warrior overtake the original vocal? Amazingly, she can - with some serious attitude and menace. “Killer - sleep with a BIGGER machine under mi pillow…”.[...] “Gun don’t play when it come to intruder” completely flips the original meaning of the tune - dancehall machismo becomes female self-defence?

Many of the tracks on the album come complete with Versions and it sounds to these ears like the Killer riddim has been instensified for 06. In fact it’s been butchered, but I mean that in a good way - hacked about by an expert knifeman, with what little fat remaining on the carcass removed with surgical precision.

2nd track is “WWW”. That “Mexican is a badman” is probably beyond dispute. Has it really been five years since I first heard this? It still sounds urgent - perhaps previously it sounded like the future, whereas in 2006 it sounds like RIGHT NOW. Admirable brutality. The version reduces the vocal to psychopathic monosylablic utterances in a wasteland of jackhammer raggage.

Mexican steps up again for “(Bun a fire pon the) Child Molestor”, a new tune which is not for the fainthearted. The version spaces the tune out into vigilantism through a skunked out haze. An outstandingly effective combination of violent vocals over a relatively (!) laid back riddim.

Cutty Ranks might be trouble in the studio, but “Boom Boom Claat” sounds like a war just started, and his delivery requires no apologies.

“[...]It seems like them haunted
Cross mi path and me kill them to rahtid
It seems like them fi get me wanted
Leave them family broken hearted”

If Paul was here, he’d was say it sounded like SWANS. Or course it doesn’t sound like SWANS at all, except in his head, but there is a shared minimal physicality which is wickedly energising.

Daddy Freddy’s “Imitator” concerns people who rip off his style. The onetime “fastest MC in the world” has some innovative solutions to copyright disputes. They involve your face.

El Feco hails from Philly (but was born in JA). His “Yard Man” features some great interplay between breakcore amens and moments of quiet which are almost acapella. I can see this going down a storm at more discerning dancefloors like Sick & Twisted.

“Problem (Version)” doesn’t come with a vocal counterpart. Something to look forward to? This seems to be Razor X at its slinkiest.

Killing Sound: Another essential for your sonic armoury.

Available in good record shops everywhere. (LP = 15 tracks, CD = 20, including more versions. But you want the vinyl, don’t you?)

UNIT - Rock In Opposition (Phase One) (DNA CD) 

This is the 6th UNIT album which builds on the lyrical themes and musical styles of previous releases, but provides some surprises into the bargain as well.

The band’s tradition of reworking previous songs is present and correct. I feel this works best with the new version of “Science and Magick” - a song which I enjoyed so much when I first heard the Academy 23 version that I seriously considered having it played at my funeral alongside Hopeton Lewis’ “Take It Easy”.

The usual score-settling occurs on “Sick Scum”, in which people who have given the band unwarranted (and downright bigoted) bad reviews are taken to task. Don’t mess!

Whilst I like UNIT’s songs, I was beginning to miss the more experimental numbers which some of the band had produced under the Academy 23 banner, so I was pleased to see that this album marks the return of some soundscapes accompanied by spoken word. “The Blue Funnel” is a definite highlight, telling the story of 4,000 Chinese sailors in Liverpool who were used in the British war effort and then cruelly cast aside.

The album marks a noticeable return to a concern with global politics. This is a theme which had always been present, but was perhaps submerged under a cynicism with anarchist and leftist politics and activists (often entirely justifiably). Themes such as globalisation and war permeate the lyrics, with an analysis far deeper than your run of the mill punk band.

“The Last 10′ of a Tyrant” deals with the actions of Pinochet on the 11th of September 1973 - the other 9/11? Other topics include Baader Meinhof and the Hungarian uprising of 1956. Alternative media is bigged up throughout - whatreallyhappened.com and indymedia especially, and “The Clear Spot” is named after and dedicated to a show on Resonance FM.

The instrumentation is intriguingly diverse - the addition of a bit of clarinet squawking alto saxophone underline the more vocally aggressive tracks really effectively.

The CD comes with a full colour 16 page booklet with photos, lyrics etc, AND a 40 page A5 booklet with texts, rants etc (including the shock revelation that Andy Martin was a raver in the mid to late 90s!).

I only have one major reservation about the album…

UNIT are known for not shying away from unpopular views and controversial lyrics. This is easy for me to swallow when they are being cynical about peace protestors and this cynicism leads them to posing the question “if wars are so unpopular, why do they continue?”. But Rock In Opposition steps over the line in one section of the otherwise excellent 9 minutes long “Middle East Panorama”.

The track begins with a great pastiche of voiceover from a martial arts film and gives way to Andy Martin’s vocal on the subject of the Palestinian conflict. Whilst obviously I’d endorse things like:

“Terrorism comes in many different types
but it’s usually controlled by the stars and stripes”

I take issue with:

“[...] brutal jewish crimes against humanity”

“[...]Kick out every jew
Tell them where to go
Victory to the PLO”

“[...]Ask for our compassion
because you are jew
yet you want to do to arabs
what the nazis did to you”

I feel that this racialises the conflict unnecessarily.

Aside from that it is completely counterproductive for two reasons. Firstly it allows defenders of the Zionist state and its occupation to continue to paint its critics as being anti-semitic. Secondly it implicitly places all jews in the category of supporters of Zionism, which is of course some way from being the case.

For example hacidic jews where I live are at pains to distance themselves from the Zionist state on the grounds that it derives from a misinterpretation of the Torah. There is a street near Stamford Hill called West Bank and hacidic jews have burnt the Israeli flag there in protest.

More promisingly I’ve personally met people born in Israel who are far from supporters of “their” government. Similarly, whilst they are currently small, it is clear that there are some elements within the conflict which are developing a class consciousness, or at the very least a perspective which is more complex than a binary “arabs vs jews” one. Couching the issue in these terms probably makes for an easier song lyric, but it can’t help our understanding of the situation. And in any case I like UNIT precisely because they usually aren’t afraid of moving away from simplistic sloganeering. I should add that I would be very surprised if any member of the band did actually harbour anti-semitic thoughts - if they did I wouldn’t be publicising their work, of course.

Thankfully the remainder of the track is up to the usual high level of musical quality and lyrical insight. An internationalist perspective is introduced which includes an attack on Belmarsh Prison - “our very own Guantanamo Bay”. I owe Andy Martin a long letter (if you’ve ever had a letter from Andy Martin you will undertand this!) and I’ll include a printout of this review and ask for his comments.

Overall Rock In Opposition is yet another excellent album from UNIT, which is unfortunately marred by about 2 minutes of ill-thought out lyrics. With that proviso aired, I’d still recommend that people check it out.

Available for £10 (including postage and packing worldwide) from: UNIT HQ, PO BOX 45885, LONDON E11 1UW, UK. Please make cheques/postal/money orders payable to YM Cheung.

See http://www.unit-united.co.uk/ for further information and mp3s.

T-WOC - Reign Blood (ABCEP005 CD EP)
Nice 7 tracker out of Dublin. I wonder if any Slayer fans with pick it up by mistake and realise the error of their ways?

It’s a bit eclectic in focus. The first couple of tracks are mindfuck mash up beaty affairs which bring early Squarepusher to mind.
(Glastonbury, 1997? on my birthday, we get up and go to see Squarepusher. He’s off his head. “Hands up everyone whose been up all night drinking! Right - the rest of you lot can fuck off…” It’s the only time I’ve ever been to Glastonbury “oh bollocks, I forgot to play my bass”)

Yiks has lots going on and a lot of it is mentalist. I didn’t like this too much at first but it’s grown on me after a few listens - especially the slightly jarring keyboards which come in about halfway through and dominate the rest of the track. Mad organist in haunted chapel stylee.

Badu is even more mash up breakbeat bizness with little hints of that mad gabba “bassline” noise. Robotic big band drummers malfunctioning in an abandoned spacestation.

Furball and its accompanying dub are my favourites. Some kind of “stadium hip hop” loop on top of two sets of interlocking breakbeats. Love this. There’s a great violin gliding through the middle of it and a nice bit of the old skankin going on alongside air raid sirens. All the ingredients, perfectly mixed for a tasty treat. The dub ramps up the echo chamber and siren. T-woc knows his dub for sure - a great use of space and subtraction here to give the crucial (de)emphasis on hidden parts of the original.

Twins is those big band robotic drummers getting their shit together because Fuzzy Jones has docked with the spacestation and they want to impress him so much he’ll stay. I reckon he’ll dig it, but it’s good to see our automated friends giving it their all anyway.

Simmons SE has some ace squiddly synths going. Iration with flashes of jittery techno. East From Vibro is steppers on a sunday afternoon, ambling along rather than sprinting. Great intro with some glitched up oriental plucky stuff given the treatment.

T-woc is definitely someone to keep an eye on- check out the mp3s and invest in a copy if you like the tunes as much as I do.

Running time 33 minutes. Available from http://t-woc.alphabetset.net/

Various Artists - ARIWA 81 Sessions (Ariwa CD)

This CD is the first in a series which acts as a counterpart to the recent Method to the Madness compilation put out by Trojan. Tracks from the vaults which have either been completely ignored for years, or have achieved classic status and now instigate serious competition on ebay.

Ariwa set up in 1979 on a shoestring budget with a 4 track tape deck and lot of ideas. Despite being told not to bother with music after his first record by the usual purist cynics, Mad Professor built himself a fanbase from the off. 1981 was the year that Ariwa used their meagre profits to install a 16 track machine in the front room of their HQ at 19 Bruce Road, SE 25.

Aquizim are best known for their take of the classic soundsystem dubplate tune Kunte Kinte, which is included here (in a different mix to the Trojan comp) along with three of their other tunes. “The System” is a propah sufferah’s lament - London style. It is also 600% better than every song recorded by Crass which featured the word “system” in the shouty lyrics (i.e. everything they did). On a less “conscious” level, their tribute to a girl named Deidre makes me wonder about womankind in 1981 if they were knocking back a bloke with a voice like that.

Yeah - Lovers! The seemingly unrevivable sister-subgenre to Roots. Collectors have entirely bypassed Lovers Rock in the “15 year rule” (the point at which reggae can be repackaged for hipsters - see all the early digi ragga compilations?). Although I guess Soul Jazz have done a Studio One Lovers set, so perhaps there’s a 30 year rule for this stuff instead?

Needless to say, this music already has an audience which is unbothered by what the taste-makers deem to be the next big thing (or indeed about matrix numbers!). I’m sure Ariwa was driven as much by business sense as by love, and I’d be amazed if Davina Stone’s “Lonely” didn’t shift serious units back in the day. Her voice is clear as a bell and the song is tip top stuff, perfectly complemented by the tuff deejay version by Ranking Ann which follows it.

“Me and You” is a mad name for a group… “who is that record by?” but they’re sound enough. In fact they are completely sincere in their suggestion that they’re not looking for a casual affair and the tune makes me feel like I’m in a warm bath - even when the snow is coming down on the bus stop on the way to work. This is no mean feat.

I’ve never heard of Errol Sly before. Sorry Errol, but Google has let me down as well. Respect for recording “Tumbledown”, though. Massive tune, which finds me singing “If you’re going to run run run… you’re going to tumble down” at the most inappropriate moments in the office. And respect once again to Mad Prof for including an awesome extended version on this one which slides into a gorgeous dub mix.

All this and some nice sleevenotes which give a bit of biographical information on the artists as well. The first chapter in what promises to be an essential history lesson of a much underexposed part of UK Reggae.

Available on Ariwa LP (with 10 tracks) and CD (17 tracks!) from all good reggae stockists…

Horace Andy, Mad Professor & Joe Ariwa - Rewired For Dub (Ariwa CD)

Horace Andy’s From The Roots album for Ariwa was apparently such a stormer that people have been begging for this dub set for some time now. Mad Professor gives the people what they want, they just have to wait a while sometimes!

I’ve not heard the original LP, but that doesn’t detract in any way from enjoying this - in fact I love discovering the full vocal after having caned its “shadow” in the dub for ages - there’s a real jolt from hearing those chopped up sylables forming actual words and sentences…

So, to business then. FFWD to Dub is Horace Andy coming in and out of the same riddim to Aisha’s stone cold classic “The Creator”. The Coolest Dub really benefits from the instrumentation and vocals being stripped right back and the live horn section gliding over the top of it all… A nice bit of sax on there - and it isnt often you’ll hear me say that.

Dub Her For Me sounds like it’s on a particularly teasing rendition of the hot milk riddim which leaves Horace stranded in the echo chamber, not able to tell her his feelings because Mad Prof keeps chucking in his entire armoury of effects. One of those dubs which has your entire mind reaching out for the 30% of the track that you know is just around the corner, but always stays out of reach. A load of producers could learn a lot from listening to this one…

Nuff tricks still under wraps in the Mad Professor’s lab. Cavernous harsh bass on some tracks, warm soothing bass on others. Vocals telling a story on some tracks, voices reduced to jittery alien noises on others… “street every day - the youth congregate… gah/gah/gah/gah/gah/…..”

The variety isn’t just down to production though, Ariwa have gone to the trouble of working with some serious names to back up a legend like Horace Andy. Mafia and Fluxy are UK stalwarts who don’t get the credit they deserve, but Sly and Robbie also lay down some of the tracks, and it seems like legendary vocal group Knowledge (see reissues on Blood & Fire and Makasound of their 70s material) serve as backing vocalists?

This is getting serious rotation ’round here at the moment - check it out if you get the chance.

Available on Ariwa LP (with 10 tracks) and CD (14 tracks!) from all good reggae stockists…