Ursula Rucker's 2001 debut album Supa Sista wasn't all it could have been. Yes, the verbals kicked and sure, some of the beats rocked, but the sparse, metallic atmospheres and raw, uncompromising nature of the poetics left many feeling cold and even a little alienated.
Given Rucker's status as the urban wordsmith of choice for super-melodic acts like Japan's Silent Poets, Germany's Jazzanova, UK's 4 Hero and local Phillie heroes King Britt and The Roots, this austerity came as something of a surprise.
Thankfully, Silver Or Lead addresses these issues head on. Instead of hiring a new set of beatmakers, Rucker has commendably re-recruited the same coterie of friends and associates that graced her first outing, commissioning tunes that better compliment her sassy attitude, melody and streetwise head-funk.
A showcase of new and unreleased tracks as well as a retrospective of some of her finest moments (most of which have only been previously released on other peoples fulllengths), Silver Or Lead is a more mature and less inhibited record.
Cuts like "Time", her philosophical team up with 4 Hero grooves, and the highly personal "Return To Innocence Lost" (which deals with the violent death of her brother) are included here, alongside a continuous flow of swirling soul and melodious thunk supplied by the likes of Rob Yancey, Jazzanova, King Britt, Mysterium and Lil Louie Vega.
Within these streams and rivers of sound which take us through Afro-latino, hypnotic hip hop and deep drum & bass, verbal blow after verbal blow is rained upon us as Rucker invests the English language with a rhythm and power all of her own.
There's a Septemeber 11 critique on "Release", self-reflection on "Lonely Can Be Sweet", poetic brutality on "What a Woman Must Do" and slavery tales on "Soon". Throughout, Rucker's velvety voice manages to both mollify and add a sinister dimension to the harshness of her subject matter.
With her follow up, she has thus created a finely balanced document which is melodic enough to make the hips swing and thought-provoking enough to demand repeated listening.
Jack Smith / BBC Review
The truth has always been stranger than the fiction that surrounds Bill Drummond and Jimmy Cauty. Whether throwing money into the crowd at a Chipping Norton rave back in 1989, machine-gunning the audience with blanks at the Brit Awards and turning up with a dead sheep at the after-party, or, as the K Foundation, handing out lager to London’s homeless on Christmas Eve or burning a million quid in the name of art, experimentation and risk-taking have never held any fear for them.
Following their success as The Timelords with ‘Doctorin’ The Tardis’ in 1987, they wrote the rules of how to have a number one the easy way in ‘The Manual’, then rewrote the rules as the KLF through hits such as ‘What Time Is Love?’, ‘3AM Eternal’ and the Tammy Wynette crooned ‘Justified And Ancient’. The duo didn’t just send shockwaves through popular music, they knocked the whole institution down and rebuilt it in their own image.
Their ‘Chill Out’ album in 1990 was no different in the way it redefined and reshaped music, albeit in a quieter and more subtle way. Apparently recorded in one live take (“We’d get near the end and make a mistake, so we’d have to go all the way back to the beginning and set it all up again,” Cauty told Record Collector in 1991) they laid down an artistic blueprint that has formed a source of inspiration and imitation for many since.
Following on from Cauty’s drifting ‘Space’ album (apparently recorded as The Orb’s first album, Alex Paterson’s contributions were later removed when Cauty decided to focus on working with Drummond), ‘Chill Out’ carried on the ambient theme, but this was a more focussed work, a concept album. Essentially a collage of samples and original synth parts, the concept is based on a journey through the Deep South of the US with track titles plotting the route along the Gulf Coast from ‘Brownsville Turnaround On The Tex-Mex Border’ through to ‘The Lights Of Baton Rouge Pass Me By’.
Rather than being inspired by personal experience, the journey was an imaginary one. “I’ve never been to those places,” Drummond revealed to X Magazine in 1991. “I don’t know what those places are like, but in my head, I can imagine those sounds coming from those places, just looking at the map.”
The sounds of a train rolling past and chattering insects mingle with steel guitar and basic ambient chords to set the tone before samples of chanting throat-singers and bleating sheep make their way into the mix. The tracks drift from one to the next, in what has become typical ambient fashion, as different places are passed en route and the steel guitar playing of Graham Lee becomes the focus. ‘Elvis On The Radio, Steel Guitar In My Soul’ adds to this Elvis Presley’s ‘In The Ghetto’, wafting in and out of the mix as the train rolls through again.
Other well-known samples can also be found emerging through the rich audio soup. The strum of Fleetwood Mac’s ‘Albatross’ fades in and out on ‘3AM Somewhere Out Of Beaumont’ before ‘A Melody From A Past Life Keeps Calling Me Back’ sees the seemingly incongruous 808 State’s ‘Pacific State’ and Acker Bilk’s ‘Stranger On The Shore’ eased naturally alongside each other.
The album also contains some of the building blocks for Cauty and Drummond’s future works. The chorus of ‘Justified And Ancient’ makes a few appearances and the triumphant chords used on both ‘It’s Grim Up North’ (a future top ten hit under the duo’s JAMs moniker) and ‘Last Train To Trancentral’ drench ‘Wichita Lineman Was A Song I Once Heard’ in euphoria, with the help of a ranting evangelist.
The album’s rich depth of layered sounds and samples set the yardstick for contemporaries such as The Orb, whose seminal ‘Adventures Beyond The Ultraworld’ stands shoulder to shoulder with ‘Chill Out’, and formed a huge progression forward from Brian Eno’s original minimal ambience. This was mellow music that could at times demand centre-stage as well as calming and complimenting its immediate environment.
Ronnie McPherson of Izu says, “‘Chill Out’ was directly and hugely responsible for making The Orb possible, and in turn The Orb fathered pretty much everything ‘ambient’ from 1991 onwards, so in that respect it was massively influential. The music it influenced has been an influence on me.” Thor Sideb0ard, who runs the Highpoint Lowlife label, agrees. “I don’t believe the ‘Chill Out’ album had that much reach or influence beyond the UK, but the people they did influence in turn greatly shaped and moulded the ambient soundscape.”
The KLF’s art-inspired exploits sometimes drag attention away from the music but they did contribute a unique legacy to electronic, cut ‘n’ paste, sample-based composition. The influence of ‘Chill Out’ can still be heard in some of today’s leftfield electronica, a huge achievement for an album that sold well but didn’t chart, is just 44 minutes long and, according to Drummond, took a mere two days to put together in Cauty’s squat-based Trancentral studio in South London.
“It made the electronic album viable and the dance producer was then allowed to indulge more,” Doug Hart of Chamber believes. “Kraftwerk were always the dons of course but KLF added madness and pop culture to mix. It really was the catalyst for a lot of amazing work through the 90’s by others.” While Ruaridh Law of The Marcia Blaine School For Girls simply states, “One: the KLF are the greatest band of all time. Two: ‘Chill Out’ may be one of the greatest albums of all time (certainly top ten). Three: anyone who disagrees with either of the above is dead inside.”
The year after the release of ‘Chill Out’, the KLF were the biggest selling singles act in the world and the following year they announced their retirement from the music industry. With Drummond and Cauty both now immersed in the art world, the KLF’s musical legacy may have been deleted at their own request but, above and beyond the heavily marketed chill out explosion of a few years ago, today’s down-tempo scene would be markedly different without it. A spectacular cultural bootprint on the face of popular music that will continue to survive down the years.
Ian Roullier / Clash Music
I’ve always thought that the music scene in London is the best in the world. The city is a melting pot of cultures, sounds and artistic creativity. Keyboard extraordinaire Joe Armon-Jones and the immensely gifted producer and overall nicest guy you’ll ever meet Maxwell Owin team up on what may be the project of the year. Incredibly crisp and groovy production from Maxwell is accompanied by incredible keys from Joe throughout, who plays the instrument so masterfully it’s often hard to keep up with his genius. Jake Long brings the drumming alive on this album, Oscar Jerome provides his talents on guitar, and South London’s jazz queen Nubya Garcia steals the show on ‘Tanners Tango’ with her mesmerising tenor saxophone performance.
But for me it’s tracks like SE Discotheque and Easy Now which really hit my heart with infectious futuristic break-beat grooves, 2 Step rhythms and gorgeous melodies which will be the sounds of the dance floor in the near future.
Idiom EP should and hopefully will be a landmark album for the London’s music scene as it embodies everything music should represent. Passion, groove, collaboration, unity and love. If only it were longer!
So my hat goes of to the whole team behind this project. My admiration for what you do for music and art has never been higher and we’ll meet again.
Please make sure you go support this project. Buy the digital album via Bandcamp, or if you live in London, make sure you head down to YAM Records and buy a physical copy if they haven’t sold out yet.
Martin Boev / In Search Of Media
Falar em 'poço sem fundo' já perde impacto e Faz-se lugar-comum. Que 'há sempre mais um disco made in Kingston por ouvir' também foi chão que deu uvas. Momento, por isso, de chamar os boys pelos nomes. Segundo fontes próximas de Lee Perry, a lei jamaicana prevê, desde os anos 60, que quem não entre em estúdio com o expresso fim de gravar um disco por trimestre, receberá, de imediato, voz de prisão, e, uma vez aí despojado dos seus pertences (sound system, microfone, caixote de acetatos de 7 polegadas, gira-discos e, por vezes, roupa), será privado de qualquer forma de comunicação e obrigado a consumir — sob apertada vigilância — um charuto cubano por dia. Isto explicaria a sonora tosse nos seus registos do fim dos anos 80 e o voluntário exílio do produtor na Suíça. Já elementos do antigo entourage de Clement Coxsone Dodd (que pediram anonimato) asseveram que um parágrafo secreto da mesma lei garante aos cumpridores daquele procedimento chorudo desconto no IRS. Na ausência (conhecida) de rituais masoquistas na ilha próxima do suspeito Haiti, isso explicaria que a Jamaica continue a rebentar pelas costuras, sem quebra visível de produção musical. Por exemplo, que história vem a ser esta, agora, de 'Ironsides'? Música produzida por fãs da série policial com Raymond Burr on wheels? Reggae de metais e de 'blindagem estética' (o cocktail de crueza e sofisticação) mais à vista? Ou a resposta ao repto patronal: 'quando fores almoçar, hás de pensar, aí, num conceito, que a gente, da parte da tarde, compõe, para ver se se consegue livrar do que ainda para aqui há'?
Que se saiba, e tendo esta cena reeditorial lugar em Londres, pende para a última hipótese o novo projecto de island digging da (imbatível, nesta matéria) Soul Jazz. Só que se esconde algo de mais sério (historicamente, até) sob o singular título. Porque a música remete para o período de maior pujança criativa do mestre da Studio One. O qual ditou um quadro de sobreprodução, cujo efeito perverso residiu na incapacidade de absorção das rádios locais, do que Clement se defendeu com a criação de editoras fictícias como a Iron Side. Numa palavra, dir-se-á que esta dúzia e meia de pepitas de ouro reitera o desejo de querer ser outra coisa que, então, se apoderou do hegemónico roots reggae. Só ouvindo se ficará com a noção desta insigne série de giant leaps for mankind. Por incrível que pareça, é quando paira a suspeita de que 'chove no molhado' que surge aquela que talvez seja a mais fresca, empolgante e inventiva obra de 'amantes da causa'. Que comece em Fabian Cooke e termine em Condi Campbell, será o menos. O 'problema' está naquilo a que ambos servem de bookends: Marcia Griffiths e uma obra-prima de frescura melódica, rítmica e vocal em qualquer género de música; Freddie McGregor a agitar a 'bandeira da revolução a cavalo de um baixo substancial de pasmar; Prince Jazzbo a abrir o livro rockers e, também ele, dando largas à arte de bem jock em toda a sela; The Paragons em aula magistral sobre a longevidade do roots reggae, Drum Bago & The Rebel Group mostrando como um só exemplo de dub futurista pode levar alguém, do outro lado do oceano, a abrir uma casa como a On-U Sound; The Stingers em vertiginoso rock steady instrumental com forte aroma a jazz local; Lone Ranger plantando future roots; The Soul Sister extraindo toda a riqueza soul de um pós-lovers rock, e por aí fora. Como dizia Clapton, à saí-da dos Cream, 'let it rain'.
Ricardo Saló / Expresso (2013)
If you're attempting to keep tabs on Matthew Dear, Backstroke arrives eight months after Leave Luck to Heaven; during the time between these releases, he produced two more singles for Spectral Sound (including one as the relatively hostile Audion) and another for Richie Hawtin's Minus label (as False), in addition to remixes for Monobox, Lusine, and Håkan Lidbo. By today's silly standard, Backstroke is being classified as a mini-LP, even though it's 40 minutes in length. (The LP version has one less track and is still longer than your AC/DC or early Prince records.) Whatever its designation, Backstroke is a marked turn away from Leave Luck to Heaven, if scarcely a stylistic changeup. Several cuts will indeed serve adequately in the clubs, but the album as a whole is tailored for a more personal setting. "Grut Wall" is an instant standout, one of the handful of instances where Dear continues to tweak the traditional pop-song format. Backward-sounding basslines, cascades of battered keyboard melodies, and multi-tracked vocals make it askew enough to make you feel as if you've just spent too much time on a sit 'n' spin, but the hooks are equally important -- it's the strangest and catchiest song he has made yet. On "Tide," everything is tangled up with great intricacy and is nearly as insidious and addictive when balled together, assisted by another refrain that could double as a playground taunt. The closing "And in the Night" is the greatest diversion, a chaotic Afro-German hybrid that crosscuts Dear's natural rigid bounce with a muffled disco rhythm section and shards of horns. The chances he takes pay off almost without exception, but the album doesn't have the easy-fit cohesion of Leave Luck to Heaven, and the dispassionate vocals that surface here and there won't be for everyone. (During "I Know Howser"'s verses, he sounds like he'd rather be folding laundry or sorting recyclables.) Some will see this as the Amnesiac to Leave Luck to Heaven's Kid A. There really isn't anything wrong with that.
Andy Kellman / AllMusic
