| #630 |
|
2002 |
Perilous 630 Since the departure of the conservative director Leo Schofield (yes the same guy who rallies against graf art), the Sydney Festival has been rapidly broadening out to a wider audience and expanding its relevance beyond the oldies in Double Bay. Last year had an exciting programme, and, freshly back from the launch of the 2003 programme, there is more good stuff this year. Once again there is a lot of free outdoor events including a giant stickytape spider & fly production that looks wild as well as a diverse range of visual arts productions and a lot of work by indigenous and emerging artists. The festival bar where Herbert played last year has an even more electronic-oriented roster this time with Katalyst, The Hive (yeah they changed their name but The Hive sounds far better), Resin Dogs and three nights I’ve put together as a Frigid Sunday trilogy. So on Sundays Janaury 5, 12 and 19 you’ll be able to catch Ohio-based DJ and producer for Defjux, RJD2 play (courtesy of a tour from Stealth Magazine); a dub soundclash between Koolism and the Frigid Sound System with MCs Hau and Ozi Batla on the mike; and New York avant-DJ now relocated to Spain, DJ/Rupture. Amongst the locals on these night you can catch Mark N, The Herd and Hermitude also and each of the Sundays are only $12. Release-wise, last time I mentioned a few current bigger releases without really delving into them. Amongst these was the sterling new Buck65 album, Square. Square is really a superb record and deserving of much more space (not to mention better distribution). Put out on Buck’s new home, the Canadian Warners (which means you have to order a copy over the net from a Canadian online shop if you want one), Square is paired down to four long ‘suites’ each about fifteen minutes and made up of untitled subtracks. Buck is the only MC I know that can scratch, cut and DJ whilst he rhymes and so each mix features several instrumental interludes which break the vocal pieces nicely. Buck’s flows are dirty, grimy languid, sometimes whispered drawls, intimate stories, fantastical stories, and most of all honest stories. There is no braggadaccio here, what little there was was spent on the earlier albums probably culminating with The Centaur (on Vertex), just straightforward storytelling. At times Buck pushes out beyond the limitations hip hop puts on itself (apparently to protect from ‘infection’), his wordplays have an introspection that can only develop far away from the bustle of an urban downtown, but then he will ‘prove’ his hip hop ‘authenticity’ with sample choices and DJ cuts. This paradox has always made Buck65 interesting – at one level there is this clear view of an artist pushing forward unconstrained by genre, and at the same time clearly loving the genre whose boundaries he is trying to elude. A stellar release and even worth going to an internet café to order from a Canadian chainstore. Also, the long awaited CD from Ollo is out on Creative Vibes. Titled Sleeper it’s a lovely journey in which elements of the 80s – post-punk basslines, hints of new-wave, rub up against glitches, stereo separation effects straight from the laptop age. There’s no electroclash here, but a pervading sense that Ollo have an impeccable knowledge of the post-punk era, oh, and a keen ear for witty samples. In the pipeline for nearly the last three years, the album has benefited from time passing under the bridge and the distance to refine it to the state it is now at release, and ordered like a DJ set, it has a strong flow and direction – something rare in this age where album are seen as just a collection of unrelated ‘tracks’. Beyond Ollo and Buck65, a firm stayer on the stereo during the Saturday afternoon bbqs has been Madlib’s 45 track mix-cd of classic reggae from the Trojan back catalogue on his Blunted In the Bomb Shelter release for Antidote. Its distributed by Inertia and is a essential for any summer sun activity . . . now if only it was the Windies instead of the Poms who were touring in the cricket this summer. Yellow Peril (www.snarl.org)  Goto
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