Libbe Matz Gang

One of my favourite releases from last year was a nine track 7” EP from the wilfully obscure Libbe Matz Gang released on Libertatia Overseas Trading; a label whose website purports run ins with customs (they are blacklisted in several states) and reports its financial projections. (“Regrettably, we incurred a small loss on net profit in this period - down by approximately £290 (18%) on the corresponding period in the year previous”).

My interest was first piqued on a blog by Kid Shirt in April 2011. Back then Google yielded little to no information, which made me more intrigued. So when i saw this 7” crop up in John Eden’s fine Uncarved antiboutique I snapped one up.

Musically it’s all anxious and radical throbbing electronics and quasihauntological snatches, framed by titles such as: “We Must Devastate the Avenues Where the Wealthy Live” and “Motorway Sex Rite”. 

Peter Rehberg included it in his Boomkat end of year list. Not that i’m speculating for one minute he’s behind the record. Who the fuck knows who these reprobates are. I’m not sure I want to. 

But for those wanting to seek out even more info, Libbe Matz Gang feature in the aforementioned Mr Eden’s singularly brilliant zine Turbulent Times (#9: The mid-life crisis issue), in which an interview informs us (among other more revealing nuggets) that the record was pressed by German anarchists after other pressing plants quibbled about pressing 9 tracks at 33.3rpm to a 7”. 

I’m yet to get hold of a copy of a new split 7” with Xylitol that dropped towards the end of 2012 but I intend to do so quickly. 

There is also a digital EP forthcoming on Hand Loom Lament who describe it thus: 

"Nostalgia-blasting bedsit black/brown clumps of porno-thrum and folk-devil fuckery flies out the blocks honking like a scrunched up ten deck of sovereign mashed up between mucky books and Guy Debord’s rap sheet".

Can’t wait.

New mix series: Open ears and minds wanted

Often i’ve thought to myself: “What the hell is Future Next Level for/about/doing/etc”, and my most common reply is that “At least it’s there!”. And that is of course bullshit. I’ve tried to think of lots of interesting things to blog about. Moreover, i’ve tried to blog the vaguely interesting things i’ve thought about. But something has stopped me. The internet doesn’t need more half arsed bullshit. It doesn’t need another press release aggregating, shit churning, meaningless wank fest. I care about music. I love it so much that it seems that nothing i have to say would do any of it any justice.

So the point of this post is not that i’ll be retiring this blog, rather that i’m going to try and kick a new lease of life into it, in what i think is the best way possible. 

I’m starting a monthly mix series. Forget what you might expect of me. Forget my dubstep associations. I’ve always been about music rather than genre. So these monthly mixes will be just that: music over genre. Anything goes. Beat matching is out of the window. I’ll flirt with making them coherent but even that may be a push.

One of my favourite DJs that i’ve “heard” recent is Heiroglyphic Being; Jamal Moss. His FACT mix shows a flagrant disregard for convention and expectation. He pushes things in and out of the mix with a rough hand that is at the same time clearly a little bit anarchic, but also aware of making something out of the madness. I can only hope to do that as vaguely as well. 

Regular listners to my Sub FM show know that since Sgt Pokes is most often off on tour, i’ve been getting away with what i can. The first half hour is anything goes. In this liberating 30 minutes i’ve been playing, as its remits suggests, pretty much anything. Music from various African countires, 70 year old records from the deep south of America, bonkers hardcore and whatever else comes to mind that particular week.

Hopefully this mix will alllow me take one more step into the “anything goes” ethos. Because although i have a radio show, i’m still aware that i’m on a station that is bass and beat orientated. Here, however, i hope to delve into the experimental. Explore my tastes in the mix, as all encompassing as they are. 

So here it is, the first in what i hope is a monthly series of mixes from me; giving Future Next Level a raison d’etre and me a new outlet for the music i truly love. 

This one is dedicated to Charlemagne Palestine and all of my illadvised tipsy Twitter moments. 

Track list is withheld, but available upon request should you need it. Just leave a comment.

# 1 Cuddly Toys and Cunning Ploys

Yup

I need to do more things that represent posts on here. i really do.

but hopefully nothing will be held against me.

Joey Brooks: Be With You

Apparently this is Mavado’s sister. Not that who your family are matters too much when you can deliver a track like this. Lush shimmering lusty pop. Bonus points for being redolent of Chameleon. This certainly goes some way to plugging Cassie’s void while she’s off on some turgid euro electro tip.

garage ustream session

To celebrate September’s anomalous heatwave, Skipple and I played some garage. Check the recording here.

Smiley Culture Hosting Channel 4 show Clubmix

Jukenglework

The rhythm connection between Jungle and Juke / Footwork can be measured at one hundred and sixty beats per minute. Well above the heart rate pound and dancefloor regulating ‘one forty’ bpm at half time. Some variation is accepted but less common. They are also both hectic and full of full on percussive clatter. There is also the space between; which can be euphoric or just brutally whacked out. One has the breakbeat, the other machine gun tom toms. They share a vocal science. Deft sampling of the human voice, manipulating it into something more unrecognisable and unworldly. Both are literally awesome, but combined they become something else.

This hasn’t escaped me and i’ve been experimenting with mixing them both together, struggling with the multitude of drums. Clatter upon clatter, defying my gentle pitch shifting nudges.

So my ears pricked up when @laurent_fintoni mentioned a literal sonic meld of the two. I don’t know who is responsible but I want to pat their back. 

Footwork Jungle fusion. Who is ready? I might see on Saturday when I play at Jukebox on the Stokey / Dalston cusp.

Smiley Culture RIP

I’m very sad to hear the news about the passing of legendary UK MC / deejay Smiley Culture. Especially in the reported circumstances, currently the subject of an IPCC investigation. 

It’s important to remember how culturally significant he was. The first black British street voice to have a chart hit. He made it possible for authentic British voices with real conscious narratives to be heard in a popular context. He was largely a one hit wonder to many, but to others he was the grandfather British MC. He started a lineage that can be followed through the Hip House MCs of the late 80s and early 90s, through jungle MCs, UK Hip Hop and to acts today such as The Streets and the grime-gone-pop acts that dominate today’s charts.

Indeed, without Smiley, the very idea that it might be possible to be successful with lyrics about the black urban experience may never have been planted. Today the pop charts are littered with these voices.

His chosen alias in many ways pre-empted his importance. The early UK reggae sound system culture, with which he was involved, would evolve through acid house, hardcore and jungle and the ‘Smiley Culture’ would become eponymous with it. 

Tonight I re-listened to my favourite Smiley Culture tracks. Police Officer is the one everyone remembers. Today that track took on a more sombre tone. What is essentially a tale of how Smiley’s minor celebrity got him off the hook when he had a brush with the law is totally different to what he must have experienced this morning when police raided his home. 

A post over at History is Made at Night flags up a quote from There Ain’t No Black in the Union Jack author and theorist Paul Gilroy that scratches under the surface of Smiley’s other big hit Cockney Translation. An erudite observation that resonates loudly in light of the Met’s ongoing mistreatment and dangerous social profiling of black men.

Today on twitter Gilroy commented: "The Met are obviously planning to celebrate the 30 yr anniversary of Operation "Swamp 81" in style.", referring to the racist stop and search policing tactics that would spark the Brixton riots. Let’s hope there was no foul play involved with Smiley’s demise today but one cannot help but have doubts. Hopefully the IPCC investigation may shed some light on what happened, but again one cannot but have doubts.

The exact circumstances will remain tragic whatever we learn. But what we do know is that Smiley has left a musical legacy few can compete with and that his contribution to UK music culture cannot be overstated. 

promotional demonstrator of music technologies

"The primary purpose of this music data assembly is to demonstrate the latest musical developments I’m involved with in addition to other musical workers. So in summary, it is a promotional demonstrator of music technologies."

Heinrich Mueller explores the zwischenwelt for Resident Advisor. mp3

Terror Danjah: Undeniable (Hyperdub HDB007)

Terror Danjah has always stood out from his peers.  His track Poltergeist encapsulated everything that was great about grime back in 2004.  It was raw, kinetic and odd. It was the sound of grime maturing from post garage mutation into a genre in its own right.  It was music clearly made on its own terms and it was, to lazily use this album’s title, undeniable. 

Grime, more recently, has become somewhat fractured and far less compelling.  While many key exponents abandoned ship to pursue something more lucratively popular, Terror Danjah remained true to, what might be called the grime aesthetic and the niche within it his own productions, alongside work by Wiley, Danny Weed, Target and Ruff Squad et al carved.  But he in particular put down the foundations for what we can still hear today in the ‘Purple’ sound of Joker, Gemmy and Guido. Vivid synaesthesia sonics; synths spouting colour as audible luminescent and lurid metaphors.  

Indeed, there is a strong visual aspect to his sound.  I’ve always thought of Terror Danjah tracks as mini audio cartoons, always vibrant and playful.  This is of course facilitated by his use of trademark ear worms; the gremlin giggle, the swooshes, as well as the masterful synthplay (as exemplarily executed on ‘Acid’). These not only make his tracks unmistakeably Terror Danjah, but also add a nice narrative thread.  Like these sounds are all conversing within the tracks. Like each track tells of a different encounter between these characters.

Sadly the majority of vocal tracks contained on Undeniable aren’t as strong as the instrumentals behind them.  In ‘old grime’ MCs embellished the tracks. In ‘new grime’, as good as Terror Danjah’s, I guess they largely detract.  They are at times a little cheesy, overly produced and fundamentally don’t add anything to the music.  This is a shame because I feel that if Terror Danjah was to produce an entirely instrumental album, without the vocal concessions, it would be a much better record.  

That said, it is pleasant to hear Bruza’s indomitable tones over a strong Danjah beat on Leave Me Alone, throwing back to some of his best work at the helm of the Aftershock crew. D Double E makes an appearance on the title track and, while it is not vintage D Double, his peculiar timbre works well over Danjah’s sound palate.

The best thing about this album is, however, the entirely noticeable development of Terror Danjah’s unique production style. He injects recent influences, not least the groove and roll of funky and post dubstep, and marries them with his signature style. The tracks that switch in and out of a 4x4 stomp are wonderfully futuristic and especially technically accomplished; a total flip of Lil Silva’s grime house sound yet totally comparable.  For instance the track ‘S.O.S’, the standout track here, all eight minutes, six seconds of it, is epic future music.  

Dubstep’s trajectory somewhat stifled grime, it created a forced hiatus where creativity struggled and producers changed tact. But Terror Danjah remained unsuppressed and this record is testament to his creativity and forward thinking.  Which, is largely why it has found it’s home on Hyperdub.  But perhaps it is not right at all to frame this record within grime or dubstep, as Terror Danjah is irrefutably one of his generation’s most consistently fascinating and outrageously creative producers.  I’d argue that Terror Danjah could have made a better long player back in 2004 but that would undermine the genuine work of brilliance Undeniable is. Instrumentally at least.

No Jokin Jus’ Jukin’ Footwurkin’ No Workin’

My little juke and footwurk ustream session. None of my face.

RIP RAMM:ELL:ZEE

"We failed what could have been “Our” culture. I went to the Puck Building (Guernsey’s Auction) in June of the year 2000 and offered my services. Everyone who was anyone in this “sub culture” had works for sale. No one sold, except for a few. I felt that the “culture” died right there. There was too much “mannerism ” not enough “burner”!!! Our futurism! We should have only stuck to doing the “letter” and joined together to fight the light dwellers. but, we will always be Kings From the Dark Continent. The veins of this Gotham! Remember this the next level, as you said, is the third dimension. I hope."