Razor X Productions – Killing Sound

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?)

THE ROOTSMAN: FROM THE DUBPLATE BASKET VOLUME 1

This is an absolutely breathtaking mix to download from none other than The Rootsman.

An unbelievable line up and some of the best performances you will hear from name artists on dubplate. You cannot buy this music anywhere…

THE ROOTSMAN Featuring D.BO GENERAL – FROM THE DUBPLATE BASKET VOLUME 1

1. ROBERT LEE – BANG BANG
2. MICHAEL BUCKLEY – CRY OF A SOUNDBOY
3. SUGARBLACK – RUB A DUB
4. ANTHONY JOHNSON – OH WHAT A DAY
5. EARL 16 – REGGAE ROCK
6. U BROWN – ROOTSMAN SOUND
7. TONY G – IF I EVER
8. SAMMY DREAD – THEY DIDN’T KNOW
9. GYPTIAN – JUDGEMENT NIGHT
10. YT – WICKED ACT
11. D.BO GENERAL – MAMA
12. ECHO MINOTT/HOPETON JAMES – DON’T TEST
13. JOHNNY OSBOURNE – HE CAN SURELY TURN THE TIDE
14. TURBULENCE – ON MY WAY
15. FRISCO KID – REVENGE
16. ROBERT LEE – LIVE GOOD
17. D.BO GENERAL – STRANGE THINGS
18. PHILIP FRASER – COME ROOTSMAN
19. BRAVEHEART – RED EYES
20. EVERTON BLENDER/DETERMINE – TIME LIKE THIS
21. JUNIOR DELGADO – KING OF KINGS
22. D.BO GENERAL – FREEDOM
23. TAFFARI – MORE ROOTSMAN
24. JOHNNY CLARKE – BABYLON
25. BUSHMAN – YADD AWAY HOME
26. BONGO CHILLI – READ YOUR BIBLE
27. LUCIANO – FINAL CALL
28. EARL 16 – CHANGING WORLD
29. FRED LOCKS – BLACK STAR LINER
30. JOSEY WALES – SLACKNESS DEAD
31. EARL 16 – PRESSURE
32. TURBULENCE – NOTORIOUS
33. LYMIE – LOVE WE MUST HAVE

Download from here while you still can.

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UNIT – Rock In Opposition (Phase One)

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

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/

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how to unblock a kitchen sink in 13 e-z steps

 

Martin spreads the love even further over at BTI.

I feel the need to reciprocate, so here goes.

Part one – try putting boiling water or bleach down it. For ritual purposes only (i.e. this never works).

Part two – buy a sink plunger (from a hardware shop – you get to feel like a proper man. Just don’t get into conversations at the counter about joists or anything)

Part three – get home. Put plunger over offending plug hole. Cover up the overflow bit, with a cloth or something that will stop air or water getting out of it (if you have a double sink you have to cover the other plughole and overflow as well. You need at least 4 arms for this. If you have four arms then you could probably find lots of more productive ways to spend your time) Plunge! Plunge as if your life depended on it! About a dozen times should do it. But don’t let me stop you taking your frustrations with the sink and the capitalist society which produced it. It’s good to have some banging music on while you do this. Gabba or tech-step I reckon.

Part four – remove plunger. If the goddess is smiling on you, the water will all gurgle away and it’s job done. Run some more water down the plug hole to make sure.

Part five – turn off the music and put some reggae on, you’re going to need it. I would personally favour Sugar Minott for this sort of scenario.

Part six – get access to the u-bend underneath the sink. Probably by opening the cupboard door to reveal all sorts of vile rubbish stored under your sink, cleaning fluids from pre-decimilisation days, rusted tools, dead animals, misplaced relatives etc.

Part seven – get a bucket and put it under the u-bend. No bucket? It’s back to the hardware shop for you then, looking like a twat.

Part eight – unscrew the u-bend and marvel as murky stinking water flows all over your arms, mainly missing the bucket entirely.

Part nine – make a mental note of what the u-bend looked like so you can put it back together.

Part ten  – get a rag or something and clean out all the putrid waste material clogging up your pipes. Into the bucket.

Part eleven – try to screw it all back together again. There will probably be little rubber washers involved – you need these, they are your friends, don’t just dump them in the bucket and hope everything will be alright. They are all the seperates you from the elements (well, one of them).

Part twelve – run a bit of water through the plug hole and check to see that your u-bend hasn’t sprung a leak.

Part thirteen – wash your hands and crack open a can of red stripe. Leave the bucket in the middle of the floor to trip over later. Either what you’ve done has worked or it hasn’t. What’s done is done and it will probably all seem better in the morning. Probably.

Blog Love

I’d been thinking that there was a lot less inter-blog linkage and conversation going on these days compared to a few years ago. It feels like we all type up these things in our silos and maybe leave the odd comment, but that most of the interaction now takes place on things like Dissensus.

So it was good to see Matt’s old skool Blog Love post recently, especially as he gives me a mention, shameless egotist that I am. It reminded me to big some people up on here, starting with him. It’s difficult to steer a path between outright back slappery and looking a bit uptight with these things, but I will do my best.

One of the exceptions to the “silo” rule is the Westside Story:

Gutta – prolific, enthused, on the ball. Plus he does his own monthly net radio show, which is seriously impressive. I’m trying to convert my envy into love here, it’s what old man Woebot would want.

Kek – loads pulp fiction, drawings, Victor Meldrew ruminations on life in da hood. I always imagine he has some kind of Tommy Vance gravelly voice for some reason. Annoying that I can’t read Kid Shirt from work.

Psychbloke – He’s resisting becoming a photoblog, but his photos (and artwork) are excellent. But I’d hate for him to stop writing – this entry on his indie teenage years is great.

Loki – Ashleeee Simpson psychoanalysis, Coil, mad audio. Job done.

I always imagine this lot as a big gang, akin to the Double Deckers or something. But with cider and tractors 🙂

obligatory nods towards:

Martin. His recent posts on the new Whitehouse CD, travelling in the Phillipines and being an altar boy are essential reading. He reacts badly to praise though, so I’ll leave it there except to say that only BTI has the ability to reduce our more academic bloggers to blurting out things like “why am I all about the wee?”.

Paul. His jungle dub mix is outstanding. But he’s rubbish at blogging. Rubbish! Pull your finger out, Paul! Suits and pagans! That’s not what the kidz want, is it?

annoying gits:

Compost and Betty.

For making it look so goddamn easy. Quite possibly the best things you will read today. I hate you both. Thanks.

on the horizon:

The other Matt should definitely do his proposed “seven a day” project. Please!

I’d like to see the manlike Droid write some more stuff, as well as continuing with the crucial mixage. That’s not too much to ask is it? I only want to have my cake and eat it, not to expropriate the bakery, innit!

we await their return, like cargo cults of yore:

Molex, Stelfox, Dubversion… come on, you lightweights. 😉

Power Writers and the Struggle Against Slavery

Power Writers and the Struggle Againt Slavery: Celebrating five African writers who came to the East End of London in the 18th Century (HANSIB/THACMO ISBN 187051833X)

A fascinating booklet published by the Tower Hamlets African and Caribbean Mental Health Association. It covers five black writers who lived in the east end in the 18th Century. Each writer is given a full biography. Examples of their written work are also included and the book is illustrated with documents and prints from the time as well as photographs of relevant locations from the present day.

Of course much of the writing is concerned with the iniquities of slavery. Indeed, the fact that Phillis Wheatley was actually able to write beautiful poetry was used as an example of the humanity of black people by the abolitionists when faced with arguments about them being more akin to livestock.

Taking a stance against slavery and the slave trade is a no-brainer these days, but in the 18th Century it was a hot issue. It is very interesting to see the arguments put forward so eloquently at the time by ex-slaves rather than white liberals. For example, the book allows us to contrast the moral and religious positions put forward by Olaudah Equiano with the more economic arguments written by Ottobah Cugoano.

The point that struggle against slavery was international and not just something undertaken by “enlightened” white people is hammered home again and again. For this reason the book also includes chapters on the Jamaican Maroons, Sierra Leone, The Bussa Revolt in Barbados, Black History in London and more. Indeed, the linking of anti-slavery issues with other struggles such as high bread prices and the demobilisation of the army was one facet of London life at the time.

Some of the incidental details thrown up by the research are as fascinating as the central theme. For example I was excited to find out that Southwark Bridge (which I walk over nearly every day on the way to work) was the site at which the Thames gave up a carved wooden spoon of an African head. This dates from the 1st Century and is therefore the oldest artifcact of its type to be discovered in London.

All in all this is extremely well researched, and written in such a way that the facts and characters come to life. Well worth getting hold of if you are interested in any of these issues – and the parallels which can be drawn with life today.

64 pages, many photos, perfectbound. £5.99. Available from AK Distribution, or perhaps you should order it from your local library, especially if you live in London?