gareth metford

Urban Funk Breaks II

[ review of: Urban Funk Breaks II by Various Artists (Urban Funk Breaks) (CD Album) ]

There is a sense in which the underground genre now known mostly as 'breaks' ('nu-electro', 'intelligent big beat' and the like having been rejected as too transparently ludicrous) mirrors the dominant mainstream club sound, epic trance.

Like trance, breaks appeals to the lowest common denominator, its combination of lush tonality and intensely predictable rhythms having the same impact on 'educated' audiences as trance does on the Hugo Boss-drenched masses. Nonetheless, if one is able to ignore the rancid odour of spurious oppositionalism hanging around the breaks scene (which is, after all, merely a mechanism for massaging the already bloated egos of its hipster audience), the genre offers plenty of dumb thrills - much as trance does, in fact.

This latest compilation from leading breaks label Botchit and Scarper introduces us to such delights as Freq Nasty's 'Underclass Remix', satisfyingly squelchy Essex electro from one of the few breaks artists to have been embraced by the 2-step garage scene. BLIM's remix of T Power's 'Running', meanwhile, puts an endearingly lo-fi spin on T Power's pristine, high-tech original.

However, the best tracks here are those that diverge from the established breaks formula. Echoing early Boymerang, Soto's 'Strung Out' drapes gorgeously atmospheric guitar licks over skeletal beatbox rhythms, while with 'Dominion', Vini Vs. Funk Monster approach Muslimgauze territory, utilising processed qawwali singing alongside ominous vocal samples and blasts of filthy distorto-bass.

All things considered, then, 'Urban Funk Breaks II' functions both as good goofy fun, and as an indicator of some of the hidden potential lurking within the breaks scene. At a time when dance music generally is so lacking in excitement, it would seem unrealistic to expect anything more...
Posted by gareth metford at 00:00, 08 May 2001

Get Ur Freak On

[ review of: Get Ur Freak On by Missy 'Misdemeanor' Elliott (CD Album) ]

At long last - the bitch is back.

Missy Elliott is that rarest of things, a star who is capable of living up to all our fanciful notions of what pop should be about. Sure, there have been more than the usual number of contenders recently. Destiny's Child, though, for all their inspired vulgarity, have always given the impression they'd rather have been born forty years earlier.

While, genius though 'Mechanical Animals' was, Marilyn Manson's subsequent retreat from widescreen electro-glam conceptualism to the safer (and more lucrative) ground of shit-kicking neo-HM has left many of us wanting to eviscerate him with his own Satan-stick. Eminem has come closest, but his routine is so wildly leftfield - in chart terms at least - that he's best approached as a kind of über-novelty act, albeit one with considerably more staying power than Jilted John or the Wombles.

Missy Elliott, on the other hand, exemplifies all the qualities of 'classic' pop - glamour, tunes, danceability - while putting a stunning urban-futurist spin on each. 'Get Ur Freak On', her first release since 1999's breathtaking 'Da Real World', sees longtime producer / collaborator Timbaland conjure a speedy, pseudo-Middle Eastern groove, strikingly remiscent of Muslimgauze, complete with howling desert winds, wailing muezzins, and frantically pounding hand-drums. Missy, meanwhile, reprises the self-aggrandisement of 'Beep Me 911' and 'She's a Bitch'.

What Elliott 'says' has never been of prime importance, however. It's more the contrast between her glossy burr and Timbaland's crisp, low-resolution beats; the way her slinky vowels wrap themselves around his eerie, descending string chords; the laconic intensity of her multi-tracked raps, which go together to make her music so utterly compulsive. Outrageously good.
Posted by gareth metford at 00:00, 03 May 2001

I Poopoo On Your Juju

[ review of: I Poopoo On Your Juju by The Third Eye Foundation (CD Album) ]

One of the most discussed aspects of early-'90s grunge was its tendency towards melancholia, a phenomenon exemplified by groups like Nirvana and Dinosaur Jr. The subsequent emergence of despair as the signature affect of a raft of '90s pop styles has, however, occasioned much less comment.

Genres as diverse as emocore, Autechre-style IDM and Scandinavian black metal - all of which appeal predominantly to young white males - are overridingly concerned with feelings of sadness, anxiety and loss. Although this could be read as evidence of the supposed 'crisis of masculinity', it is worth noting that, unlike previous underground styles such as punk and industrial, or current mainstream 'rebellious' options nu-metal and rap, none of the above-mentioned genres requires feelings of sadness to be disguised as anger, or some other acceptably 'masculine' emotion.

The rise of 'sadcore', in all its manifestions, may therefore point to a fundamental softening in the psyches of some young males - a shift away from the old, gendered equation of negative emotions with weakness, which so often results in violence and self-harm.

That said, the Third Eye Foundation's Matt Elliott is unlikely ever to produce anything as deeply traumatised as Burzum's 'Det Som En Gang Var'. His music, though frequently as weepy as they come, is nonetheless informed by a sly, slightly absurdist sense of humour, as signalled in the title of his latest release.

'I Poopoo On Your Juju' gathers together eight of Elliott's remixes, the recipients ranging from German post-rock boffins Tarwater to British 'television artist' Chris Morris. Unsurprisingly, nothing here diverges radically from the well-established TEF formula. Wilting, tear-drenched melodies thread their way through thickets of querulous noise, while indeterminately sketched beats (is it hip hop? drum 'n' bass? bossa nova?) clatter vaguely away in the underbrush.

The exception is 'Mute', a version of a track by Faultline. This is easily Elliott's best work to date - six minutes of pounding, depth-charge bass and spiralling guitar textures, sounding like the intro to the best jungle record you've ever heard, crossed with My Bloody Valentine's 'Loveless'. 'When I Dance', based on Glanta's cover of the Jonathan Richman tune, is also highly enjoyable: Morricone-style Spanish guitars blur into sluggish, pea-souper atmospheres, while a very bored-sounding female voice intones Richman's self-mocking lyric. Overall, the track has something like an Addams Family feel to it - lovely.

For TEF completists, then, 'I Poopoo On Your Juju' will obviously be an essential purchase; pleasingly, the album also has something to offer the rest of us.
Posted by gareth metford at 00:00, 02 May 2001