Greetings folks,
Hope you're all doing okay. Still dry and warm here in Amsterdam, so another week of perching on the stoop interspersed with gentle strolls and cafe visits has been in order. Gotta make the most of it, eh? Meanwhile the Dutch government are slowly relaxing their last remaining covid-blocks, which is causing a considerable amount of annoyance as people try and figure out exactly what they can and can't do. As long as everything's 100% back to normal by the time of Le Guess Who at the start of November, I'm OK with it. Crossing fingers firmly for that, as you'd expect.
"This time the choice was easy. No deliberation, no dithering, nothing like that.
This album came out a few weeks ago. I think. My sense of temporal distance is still pandemic-wonky.
His first album under this name in 7 years. A fine selection of noisy, intense basscapes. With some great vocalists. From long term collaborators like an emcee who was part of Roll Deep’s original line up in 2002, through to new collaborators like a rising Grime emcee from Birmingham, or a Jamaican poet/playwright.
Some might say it’s a dark album, but not me. It’s an album steeped in the space and tension of early Dubstep, with angry bars coiling through bass-heavy post-industrial soundscapes, that’s true, but anger can be a cathartic, creative energy, as it is here. Afterall, the world is in a pretty bad way at the moment. Pandemic, bullshit nativist populism, sociopathic venal politicians, climate change, antisocial media, the list goes on, and perhaps, a healthy response is to release and acknowledge the anger at the state of things. Witness the shitness, as it were.
It sounds a bit like a soundtrack to a cinematic midpoint between Bladerunner, Top Boy or Bullet Boy, and Children of Men. Which, sadly, isn’t too far away from where we are now.
I suspect that some of you might have already listened to this album, but hey ho."
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