| #707 |
|
2004 |
Perilous 705 The new RJD2 album, Since We Last Spoke (Def Jux/Creative Vibes) has finally arrived. And it’s a bit of a surprise. Although he hinted that he had shifted away from samples when he was out here on tour and that more than half the instruments on the new record were played by him, I’m not sure I was quite prepared for the results. There are some great tracks but the sounds are much more rounded, better produced, and draw influences as odd as FM rock and italo house. The dusty beats and 70s samples of Deadringer are instead replaced by warm synths, rounded beats – and there are no guest MCs. If anything, this change in direction makes the album a little uneven, but worth checking. In a similar vein is the debut from Brighton producer Nostalgia 77. Titled Songs For My Funeral (TruThoughts/Creative Vibes) it brings together a bunch of seriously moody downtempo beats, scratchy piano, horns, and odd samples. Some local reviewers seem to have taken issue with the bleakness of the recording, but they seem to be expecting some predictable boom bap hip hop instrumentals which this record fortunately is not. On a similar sampling tip – FM rock and odd samples - I saw Donna Summer (aka Jason Forrest) perform last year at the Wrong Festival in Barcelona. For some reason I keep get him confused with Knifehandchop who I met on the same trip – a scruffy ex-raver kid in a Megadeth t-shirt. Both make mutant splattercore but Jason Forrest makes music that is big, loud, stupid but at best of times also witty and intelligent. How can this be? Well, Forrest ran one of the best college radio shows in the USA on WFMU, Advanced D&D which finished earlier this year, and on this show he developed a huge global fanbase (which you can still download streams of at www.wfmu.org). This full length album, The Unrelenting Songs of the 1979 Post Disco Crash (Sonig), from Forrest who, perhaps for legal reasons, has dropped his Donna Summer moniker, plunders the vaults of Seventies rock – from the rubbish to the classic, the hair metal and glam to the very revered. Imagine if you will, a crack fuelled DJ Shadow let loose on the playlist of a ‘best of the 70s’ radio station. The best track, Satan Cries Again, is a lively mix of crashing drum solos, guitar riffs, a slight snapshot of The Cars, and loose jungle timing. And on Ten Amazing Years, The Who is mercilessly shredded and reworked. There are obvious nods to Z-Trip, Shadow, RJD2, Prefuse73 and Dangermouse’s Grey Album but there is a truly irreverent streak that runs through everything on the album – too fast, too noisy. And unlike most of the bootlegs and mashups circulating this is more than just stupid fun, there’s actually been time, care and concept at work. Frigid is rocking on at the @Newtown on Sunday evenings and it’s a nice warm place to be on a cold Sunday night. There’s a big reggae and dub special on May 30 with Nardo from Firehouse plus the usual suspects, then we launch The Books’ Lemon Of Pink album with a live set from Clue To Kalo (Leaf/Mush) on June 6 . . . . oh, its free entry too. Yellow Peril (www.snarl.org)  Goto
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