'Neighbourhood' 12"

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In London, where traffic routinely moves at a crawl, and the spoilers adorning so many Beemers and Mercs function merely as the aestheticised remnants of a long-superseded imperative, the happy hardcore beloved of provincial boy racers falls victim to a head-nodding, wheel-tapping emphasis on bass. Zed Bias is 2-step's master of bass, and 'Neighbourhood' is possibly the most compelling expression of his low-frequency fetish yet. With its skeletal rhythm, ragga catch-phrase, and brief licks of piano, the track is really little more than a pretext for the most monstrously over-powering bass sound yet to be heard on a 2-step record, a flatulent blast emanating unwholesomely from the belly of some unnamed '70s monosynth, aimed directly at London car culture. Even the title 'Neighbourhood' seems to hint at that wierd, city-specific use of cruising: to define a territory, to impress one's stamp upon an area, to map out its boundaries. Not that this is a record which can only be enjoyed while on the move: listened to at home, on headphones (you'd need tolerant neighbours to be able to listen to it any other way) it resonates with the life of the city, seeming to somehow encapsulate the essence of all those multifold basslines which so mysteriously flavour one's experience of urban space.