Low End Lowlife: 04.07.11

A recent article I was checking out in a particularly middle-class rag (I won't embarrass myself any further... ok it was The Guardian, but this doesn't mean I eat bulgur wheat and bang on about carbon footprints) claimed that modern British music no longer has any activism in it. No more do the poets & lyricists of Great Britain strive to make an anthem for the bitter downtrodden workers that weave the very fabric of this great nation. No longer do our fine lands' inhabitants pick up a guitar and inspire Albion's finest to dig one last shovel of coal, fell one more oak or weld one last join... Personally I'm fine with that, as Billy Bragg is pretentious shite and everyone works in a call centre these days anyway. So whilst all you good folk are out at the picket line, I'll be in a dingy little Yarmouth club somewhere organising a conga line and a double G&T. Deal? Lovely.

Another man who seems more concerned with the preservation of the motion of hips than protest, but works as hard as any man on the picket line, is the ever dependant Silkie. Yes, less than a month after the wonderful 80's vibe of ‘City Limits 1.6-1.8’ the bDeep Medi general returns with the longplayer ‘City Limits: Vol 2’. Admittedly the sound is no great departure from his trademark style of throwback funk and Weightwatchers defying bass, but when you can control it like this man nobody should mind that much. Everything about the tracks on this album resonate with a long-forgotten vibe of good times. From the endearingly tacky synth breaks of 'New York City' to the exactlywhatitsaysonthetin nature of 'Get Up And Dance', this album leaves no stoned unturned in the field of 'finding something better to do with your time than complain'. Silkie has found it, it's called dancing. Throw a collaboration with Skream, which is so good they couldn't be arsed to give it a name, into this heady cocktail and you might have just found this summer’s finest anti-recession record.

Another label unafraid to roll up their sleeves and get up to their elbows in it is the Kode 9 helmed Hyperdub. Dropping 12's at a rate akin to high grade explosives in Libya, this month’s releases see cuts from the ever illusive Hype Williams & old school grime disciple D.O.K. To the best of my knowledge this is D.O.K's first physical solo release (at present I'm nowhere near the internet, so I couldn't look it up and fob it off as my own archive-like knowledge either) and, much like the man he earnt his stripes with (grime heavyweight Terror Danjah), it comes off like the mutant stepson of early 90's west coast G-funk and a sizzurp sippin' grime beat. Apparently not unaware of this tribute the two tracks are simply titled 'West Coast' & 'East Coast' and sonically speaking it is clear the man was not inspired by Anglia or Abergavanny. Taking things on a much more laidback but no less space age trip is all round wild card Hype Williams. I don't know if they are one man, a whole gang of children or twelve women with an amp-fiddling Korean orphan as my internet is still broke, but it doesn't matter. They make wonderous noise. If you didn't hear their recent longplayer 'One Nation' now is the time to say "how do?" with the suitably obscurely titled Kelly Price W8 Gain Vol II E.P. Additionally in a most fitting manner Volume I of this strange set of records doesn't actually exist. But I reckon it's still really good. Theoretically...

Rounding up this hard-work inspired column, which in itself is not remotely hard work (I just chat shit about records I listen to anyway) is the newest clutch of remixes from Kevin Martin, also known as The Bug, sometimes known as King Midas Sounds, and spotted every so often as Black Chow. He might also be Spartacus... Working this week under his Bug moniker the man has pulled possibly the most vicious remix of all time out of his Rasta striped bag of tricks for Ding Dong's 'Badman Forward, Badman Pull Up' on Greensleeves. Think classic dread dub style, an ever agressive & elasticated Flowdan vocal and more energy than a Duracell bunny plugged into a dynamo. Oh, and whilst he had a spare few minutes he also threw together the third volume of the Killer Mysteron Sounds collection for Soul Jazz. It was probably quiet in the office that day...

Anyways, time I got out of my office... Which may or may not be my mother's spare room. It's not... It is... I'll just grab my jacket.