IMO ’BETTER BEATS

Rip It Up, Issue 236, 1 April 1997, Page 26

IMO ’BETTER BEATS

DJ MUGGS/VARIOUS

DJ Muggs presents... The Soul Assassins (Sony)

Muggs fancies himself as a latterday Quincy Jones, and by the sounds of it he could be on to a winner. With a collection of beats and bumps that have been rattling around his brain for the last two years, Muggs laid down the tracks then pulled in his rap ‘Dream Team' to write and perform the lyrics. The obvious winners come from the established artists — such as Dr Dre and B-Real together on .‘Puppet Masters’, and RZA and GZA on ‘Third World’ — but up-and-coming talent such as Infamous Mobb and Goodie Mobb do very well and deserve their place. Also includes Cypress Hill, Mobb Deep, and the Fugees’ Wyclef... need I say more?

SIZE QUEEN

Pimps, Pumps, and Pushers (Universal)

This album isn’t as sleazy as the title or the sleeve art would suggest. It’s a good collection of house and electronic rhythms from Berlin’s Peter Rauhofer, mixed down in New York. This is the sort of album you might slyly slip on when you get your date home. Starting innocently with tracks like ‘Walk’ and ‘Music’, it slips into stuff like ‘Horny’, ‘K-Hole’, and ‘That Body Made For Sin’. But it’s not overt, and the vocals won't send your date running from the room screaming what a pervert you are... unless you really listen hard.

FUNKMASTER FLEX/VARIOUS ARTISTS

Volume 2 (BMG) The official title of this album is ‘The Mix Tape Volume Two — 60 Minutes of Funk’; but frankly, the mixing in some parts is almost non-existent, with Flex choosing instead to just use some of his radio stings. That said, this is hip-hop gold, and well worth the price of admission. If you got Volume 1, you’ll know what to expect: 60 minutes of Flex having a whale of a time cutting up everyone from the Gap Band, to Mary J Blige, to Redman, to Parliament, to Wu-Tang t 0... hey, its all here, and it’s good. When he chooses to, Flex can mix beats smoother than yo’ mama’s weekend stew.

VARIOUS ARTISTS

Get on the Bus Soundtrack (Universal) Music from and ‘inspired by’ Spike Lee's new film about last year’s Million Man March, this compilation should serve as an antidote to those in the media decrying the recent deaths of Tupac and BIG as some sort of indicator that black youth has no future. Both the film and this album offer hope aplenty, with tracks such as ‘New World Order’ by Curtis Mayfield, and Stevie Wonder’s cover of Bob Marley’s ‘Redemption Song'. The Neville Brothers ‘Over A Million Strong’ and Earth, Wind & Fire’s ‘Cruisin’’ round off the oldsters, with D’Angelo, A Tribe Called Quest, and BLACKStreet representing the youth. This is a well-round-ed compilation that sits well after a couple of listens.

debut album. Alongside other soul performers such as Maxwell, Groove Theory, and Me'Shell NdegSOcello, Badu is expanding the boundaries of conventional R&B with something the record companies are now calling ‘neo-soul’. But is it any good? Well, yes — but it’s definitely of the more adult variety, not your average radiofriendly R n B pop. Most of the songs are slow, mid-tempo, jazz-flavoured tunes, with Badu’s wonderfully sharp vocals laid out on top. Well worth a listen.

ERYKAH BADU

Baduizm (Universal) After breaking through on the High School High soundtrack (with D'Angelo), Badu gets to launch her

and tones, most suitable as background music for a Sunday afternoon. Resonator succeed in unsettling the listener a little more but any effect they achieve is dulled by a lack of variation throughout this release, further hampered by some very dated sounding samples. A tacky digital bass will never have a patch on the real thing. They do have a sense of humour though, and if you like the Strawpeople mixed with some token drum ’n’ bass and a bit of Enigmastyle monastic chanting, this could be for you. JUSTIN REDDING Us 3

VARIOUS ARTISTS

Party Anthems 3 (Sony) This double disc compilation- is an eclectic collection of ‘anthems’ from the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras. It contains a great party set on disc one, all mixed together by Kate Monroe. Kicking off with Robert Miles ‘Children’, Monroe mixes in old and new, including Lisa Marie Experience's ‘Keep on Jumping’ and a hi-energy remix of Grandmaster Flash's ‘White Lines’, and the Eurythmics’ ‘Sweet Dreams’. It’s great, as is disc two: the' 'recovery' set. Dolly Parton, Dusty Springfield and Undisputed Truth rub shoulders with Bjork, Pauline Henry and more. Perhaps a tad handbaggy, but overall this should be great for a party with a diverse bunch of people.

GINA

ooh aah... Just a Little Bit (Warners) Six dance mixes and three pin-up cards of Gina — who ain’t all that. Jon Please Wimmin, Motivß, and the Eurovision Song Contest version... Jeez. Louise, grab your handbag and let’s head for the dancefloor and wave our hands. Next!

SPICE GIRLS

Who Do You Think You Are? (Virgin) Gotta love the Spice Girls, even with crap like this. This is the David Morales nine-minute club mix of the B-side of their new radio single ‘Mama’. And it's good. Morales has the bass thumping, nay, pounding out the speakers, and it's only when the girls actually sing that the side is let down. Hence the dub mix! This should work on club floors — I played it on bFM and no one rang in spewing. (Every other student station will now fall about laughing, and clip and pin this to their notice board with witty comments scrawled in beneath.) NICK D’ANGELO

Broadway & 52nd (EMI)

This is the second album from Us 3. They’re an acid jazz sort of group who play around a lot with live jazz, hiphop, and samples from the Blue Note catalogue. They also had a big hit a ways back with ‘Cantaloop’, which was a bit of a novelty jazz hit. Nothing else they’ve done has been quite as fresh, and Broadway and 52nd bores the pants off me. It’s pleasant enough, and they seem to have hardened their sound over the years, with a lot more rapping involved, but... yawn. It’s a cliche already, but the most likely place you’ll hear this is your local caffeine distributor. ANDY PICKERING

THE HERBALISER

Blow Your Headphones (Ninja Tune) Excellent new album from the Ninja camp, and on the phatometer this registers as one juicy steak. Like a lot of the Ninja roster, the Herbaliser sound is a merging of hip-hop flavour, a jazz attitude, and a healthy sense of humour. What sets Blow Your Headphones apart from the pack is the use of rappers on several tracks. It comes as a surprise the first time you listen to them, but then you think, ‘Yeah, this trip-hop with rap thing (it’s all hip-hop really...) really kicks, man!’ Check the full flavour of What What on 'The Blend’. What What is a sassy sounding woman with a bad' name, but she rips the mic’ on four tracks with accomplished ease. Very cool. ANDY PICKERING

VARIOUS ARTISTS

Shake the Bones: A Hydrogen Dukebox Compilation (Hydrogen Dukebox)

Plenty of generic sounding pulp on this comp’, but Hydrogen Dukebox do have a couple of recognisable names, plus some tasty tunes to balance it out. Chamber kick things off with ‘Funky Paradise’, a dark (and yes, funky) piece of D&B followed by the Beaumont Hannant remix of ‘Thirteen’ by Globo, which is fine if you’re a fan of either. Slab have also forked out for ‘name’ remixes (Monkey Mafia and Andrew Weatherall), but neither of these tracks equal the best bits on their Freaky Speed album. The choice cuts come in the form of some subbass massage on ‘lmaginary Ocean’ by Soil and ‘Electrastar’ by TLM, and some hammering percussive splurge on Crash’s ‘Shoeshiner’, in which they take what starts off sounding like MOR drum ’n’ bass and warp it into another episode of their quest to ‘bash the fuck out of anything they can get their hands on’. This is the album’s only real bone shaker. JUSTIN REDDING

VARIOUS ARTISTS

Dance Net Volume 2 (Dance Net) Yawn. Typically banging double CD compilation from the cheesy Australians at Dance Net. Lots of big party-type anthems from everyone from Mrs Wood, to Jayde, to Wink. There are some cool tracks here, but only because they’ve become big anthems and Dance Net want to cash in. Yep, we’ve got credible tracks like ‘Higher State of Consciousness’, ‘Plastic Dreams’ and ‘No Other Love’, rubbing shoulders with hands-in-the-air screamathons from people like Alex Party and Smash ’n’ Grab. This is for fourth formers starting to get into dance music, or the sort of cheesy Australians who lap this shit up. ANDY PICKERING

up big time, and because volume one was obviously a big seller, yep, it’s time for the second round. It’s a classy collection of breakbeat cuts that covers the whole specturm. From the superb selections of deep, deep jazz from the likes of Endemic Void, Justice and James Hardway, to the hardstep pressure of Aphrodite, DJ Rap and Elementz of Noize, it’s top stuff. A double CD, and yes, you get a 120-page colour booklet. Top value. These Volume comp’s are all very nice, but wouldn’t it be cool to see the CDs mixed on the odd occasion? ANDY PICKERING

VARIOUS ARTISTS

Journeys by DJ, Farley & Heller/ Part 1 (Twisted) Oh, lovely, a nice new mix CD from Farley and Heller, two UK house DJs who genuinely care about house music — and boy, does it show. Groovy beats, passionate a cappellas, solid mixing, and some very large tunes add up to a wicked package. ‘The Way’ by the Funky Green Dogs, with its insistent dirty bass, tuff rhythms and tasteful vocal, is an absolute killer, as is the haunting ‘Morel’s Groove’ from one of the greats, George Morel. Also on deck are premium slices of deep house from St Germain and Black Science Orchestra. This is something for the house connoisseur, and you won’t be disappointed. ANDY PICKERING

NICK HOLDER

One Night in the Disco (K 7 Latest offering from the excellent and well-varied K 7 label. Nick Holder is an accomplished house producer, harbouring a slightly unhealthy preoccupation for disco music — sort of a phat 90s house homage to the great uplifters of the disco era. So, while the beats are indeed phat, well-produced, and pretty darn funky, unless you are also susceptible to a bit of disco on the side, this slice of Cheddar will probably rub you the wrong way. There’s a definite melancholic vebe to some of the more tasteful tracks, like ‘Scenic Route’, while at the other end of the cringeometer, ‘Greatest Dancer’ features samples of Donna Summer, and it ain’t always pretty. ANDY PICKERING

VARIOUS ARTISTS

Trance Europe Express 5 (Volume) Yep, Volume have been churning these things out for years now; and more often than not, it’s a pretty safe bet a Volume compilation will be a pretty good collection of tracks, with its finger firmly on the pulse of the times. And in keeping with the fairly varied (and healthy!) state of dance music right now, this is a nicely diverse collection of European dance music. To call this trance in its purist form would be very misleading; there’s banging techno from the Advent and Slab, cool technoid house from Orlando Voorn and Neil Landstrumm, and a big phat slice of minimal breakbeat from DJ Trace(!). Not exactly essential, but a very solid compilation — a double CD and, as with every Volume extravaganza, you get the very informative 192-page glossy booklet. Top value. ANDY PICKERING

VARIOUS ARTISTS Breakbeat Science 2 (Volume)

Yep, Volume have been churning these things out for years now; and more often than not it’s a pretty safe bet a Volume compilation will be a pretty good collection of tracks, with its finger firmly on the pulse of the times. And since breakbeat is blowing

PHOTEK

Ni-Ten-lchi-Ryu (Two Swords Technique)/The Fifth Column (Science)

More meticulously crafted, minimal drum ’n’ bass from Rupert Parkes. Parkes’ bass-thuds punch the air like a martial artist, and his snares sound like things being hit real fucken hard, which is a pleasant change from the insect farts that often pass for drum sounds. ‘Two Swords Technique’ is intense and eerie, with what sounds like samples from a B-grade samurai flick, while ‘The Fifth Column’ is even more stripped-down and dark and introduces the dance-inducing potential of the gong. The leal shit, glasshopper. JUSTIN REDDING

FUTURE SOUND OF LONDON

We Have Explosive (Virgin) Five incarnations of FSOL’s most energetic moment since ‘Papua New Guinea’. In addition to an extended original version, there’s Leon Mar’s slowed-down drum ’n’ bass treatment, the groovin’ ‘Oil Funk Remix’ (which brings to mind the theme to Barney Miller), ‘Pt. 4’, which I’m pretty sure is the Herd Killing mix that appears on the Wipeout 2097 soundtrack, and (best for last) ‘Pt. s’, a 6AM special for FSOL fans who’ve worn out their copy of Lifeforms. JUSTIN REDDING

VARIOUS ARTISTS

7 Hills Clash: Signals From the Sheffield Underground (Kudos) A compilation of material from four Sheffield labels who are smart enough to pool their resources — and put the good stuff at the top of the tracklist. First up from Earth Records are three furious slices of jungle, with great sped-up-dub basslines (the kind you don’t hear much anymore), plus a bass heavy beat monster with an annoying shouted vocal. Breakbutt Recordings are a little lighter and less original in the breakbeat department, but still retain a nice dub flavour with their four-piece pack. Unfortunately Wholesome Records’ sole offering really doesn’t go anywhere from beginning to end, and the three tracks from 10 Denk Records aren’t up to much either; by the time these come along there’s a strong tempation to just get back down to Earth.

JUSTIN REDDING