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Rip It Up, Issue 245, 1 January 1998, Page 30

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PRIMAL SCREAM Echo Dek (Creation) VARIOUS ARTISTS Submission 2: The Remixes (Quango) So it seems dub is backer than back. Like the hairy chest of music, what you least expected has become hip all over again. As the weather warms and the smoke rises, these dubwise reggae relaxers will kick you into cruise control.

The Primals’ last album, Vanishing Point, gets some rubadub stylee all over their new album courtesy of a certain Adrian Sherwood of some outfit called On-U Sound. What! Are you kidding me! On-U mixing up Vanishing Point, how could it go wrong? ‘Star’ turns into this delicious light headed warm fuzzy called ‘Revolutionary’, with Bobby Gillespie’s vocals, ‘Every brother is a Staaeeeaaarrr’, floating off to Babylon on a wave of beat mutilation. And the vacuumpumped remix of ‘Out of the Void’, entitled ‘Vanishing Dub’, evolves the original’s sense of drug addled powerless paranoia, and revels in the escapism of it all. Echo Dek\s a bloody good idea, executed with blunt perfection. And it’s a great introduction if you haven’t yet savoured yer dub delicacies.

Dubmission 2 however is a different suck of the spliff. The Rolls Royce of summer dub albums, this is an absolute must.

With remixes of Gregory Isaac’s ‘Night Nurse’ from Cottonbelly, and the sublime Kruder and Dorfmeister bookending the album, you’re in for a journey of translucent spiritual bliss. Pork’s finest, Fila Brazillia, add their expansive ambient dance flavours to some Black Uhuru. Sly and Robbie’s ‘Demolition City’ gets the treatment from Bristol’s Smith and Mighty, and there’s an absolute mindbender from Tom Chasteen with this sweetly psychedelic Skull Valley remix. In fact, the only track that doesn’t gel and improve is the slightly jarring Kid Loops inclusion. But that doesn’t spoil the pull of this absolutely essential possessed-or-the-summer-won’t-be-worth-living album.

JOHN TAITE

FRONT LINE ASSEMBLY Reclamation (Roadrunner) Formed by ex-Skinny Puppy guy Bill Leeb in 1986, Front Line Assembly have been massively influential in the crossover of industrial rhythms and textures into the more conservative metal/ hardcore areas. While these types of music have a lot in common, it took a long while before highly repetitive, electronically

generated rhythms were adopted by heavier guitar bands. It was acts like FLA, Ministry, Skinny Puppy, and the Young Gods on Chicago’s Wax Trax! that are

responsible for the current wave of electronic heaviness. This compilation of FLA material, dating back to 1989, virtually documents the growth of this type of music, from the flimsier earlier material, through to the cyber-heaviness of later Roadrunner-released tracks. Groundbreaking in every way, Reclamation is the sound of 90’s paranoia put to music.

GAVIN BERTRAM

CHUMBAWAMBA

Tubthumper (EMI) God Save The Queen! Let’s fly the flag a little, remember the Union Jack for all it’s confused messages.. My fave, Colonialism... and thankfully it’s alive and well and it’s name is Chumbawamba. Previously they’d

attacked EMI, talked “leftieanarchis,” and been aligned with Crass on a musical and political plane. Smash the bloody state, power to the worker... nah fuck working! Now, they spit venomous cliche, “selling” drinking, singalong culture, all the while on a label that could have kicked them to musical touch permanently, and knowing full well that the title track was a fast track to the gravy train. Okay, if you had no other plan to begin with — at least you’re honest... and artistically empty. On ya Chumbawamba! Fanta baby, fanta! What an awesome stocking stuffed

MAC HODGE

VARIOUS ARTISTS The Jackal Soundtrack (MCA) Well, it’s an easy one this. The artists speak for themselves — so much so they’re listed on the front cover. Prodigy, Massive Attack, Goldie, Chemical Brothers, Black Grape, Apollo 440, LTJ Bukem, like we’re talking England’s first 11 of dance and groove. Fatboy Slim’s ‘Going Out of My Head’ should finally get Norman Cook’s new blaster some muchly deserved attention. The Massive Attack track is a bit of a bollocksy noise fest, but Primal Scream and Black Grape donate two of the finest tracks off their respective new albums (‘Star’ and ‘Get Higher’). And Bukem’s ‘Demon’s Theme’ is an outstanding pottle of drum ‘n’ bass from the man. Not much more to say really, apart from how could Bruce Willis play the part of the Jackal — master of disguise? What, the world’s intelligence agencies have never

seen a Die Hard movie. Surely he sticks out like swollen dogs bollocks no-matter what sort of hat or crafty moustache he was wearing. Anyway, nothing to do with the soundtrack of course.

JOHN TAITE

JUNKIE XL Saturday Teenage Kicks (Roadrunner) Having been responsible for some of the megaton remixes on Fear Factory’s Remanufacture, it’s little surprise that Junkie XL’s debut album kicks it pretty hard. Fear Factory guitarist Dino Cazares even contributes all the guitar parts on Saturday Teenage Kicks. What you get is some damn hard hip hop, with heavy beats, and cool raps, a little reminiscent of the Prodigy — in a good way. There’s not a lot in the way of gabba or hardcore beats, which I would have expected after Remanufacture. It’s the vocals that are the real standout here, like an even more adrenalised Kool Keith, especially on ‘Billy Club’ and .‘X-Panding Limits’. GAVIN BERTRAM

NO DOUBT The Beacon Street Collection (Interscope) SUBLIME Secondhand Smoke (Gasoline Alley) Again, West Coast (Southern California to be exact) rock rules it seems — but this time round, it’s not the laid back singer/songwriter coke-cool of the 70s, but a skabased, hardcore pop. Both No Doubt and Sublime are partly responsible for putting fun back into the charts. Secondhand Smoke is a collection of demos and remixes from a band whose popularity (despite/because of lead singer Brad Nowell’s much publicised death via drug overdose) continues to astonish. If nothing else, Smoke demonstrates Sublime were capable of an eclecticism which outstripped all contenders. Dub, hardcore, reggae, even Gershwin — it’s all here, sampled, scratched, smacked, and surfed. Their final message may well be, “nothing’s sacred.” Whatever, it’s a strange, lovable album, best considered this summer after too much sun.

No Doubt also experienced a wondrous ascent into the musical stratosphere. Beacon Street is a reissue of an independent 1995 release. No Doubt’s pop melodramas are the perfect vehicle for Gwen Stefani’s theatrics — hers is a voice that takes no prisoners. You either get it or you don’t. Beacon Street shows a band still finding its feet musically, and one in dire need of a good producer to reign things in. Songs like ‘By the Way’, 'Blue in the Face’, and ‘Stricken’, prove that the talent was always there, and that Stefani was a pop star biding her time.

GREG FLEMING

THE GOLDEN PALOMINOS The Best Of The Golden Palominos 1983-1989

(Music Club)

The ‘best of in the title of this cheaply packaged compilation is something of a misnomer — the album covers only the first six years of the Golden Palominos 15 year existence. During this period, the Palominos operated as a sort of musical collective (always under the tutelage of band leader/drummer Anton Fier), shifting musical styles from album to album. On their self titled debut in 1983, they engaged in a wilful cacophony of art-rock-funk-jazz noise, which, while it might have made sense at the time, now sounds dangerously dated. A lurch towards a more accessible sound came with Visions Of Excess in 1985, an album built around the strong guest vocal performances of Michael Stipe, John Lydon, and Syd Straw, amongst others (the best of which are included here). The 1986 follow up, Blast Of Silence, played like Visions Of Excess 11, and featured more guest vocalists in a similar rock/pop framework, before another seachange occurred with A Dead Horse Here, the Palominos began mapping out a new musical direction, featuring for the first time a resident female vocalist in Amanda Kramer (to be replaced by Lori Carson as the 90s rolled on). The personnel changes and radical shifts in musical style undertaken by the Golden Palominos during the 80s, make this a far from cohesive collection. But as a sort of ‘four bands for the price of one’ sampler, there’s no denying that it makes for an intriguing footnote in the annals of rock history.

MARTIN BELL

LIFE OF AGONY Soul Searching Sun (Roadrunner) . More steps forward for New York’s Life Of Agony, which may see them leave some fans of their older hardcore material by the wayside. Taking on a-shitload more melody with their time honoured crunch, the songwriting here leaves many of their peers looking foolish. MTV Superock hit, ‘Weeds’ is the perfect example of this, as is ‘Gently Sentimental’; both exhibit a confident grasp of melody, with massive hooks to burn. Keith Caputo’s vocals

overflow with emotion, Joey Z’s guitaring straddles heavy riffing and more thoughtful, textural parts. Not to mention a hell of a versatile rhythm section. And there’s more; ‘Tangerine”s perfection and the more restrained, ‘Desire’, both challenging Caputo’s considerable vocal prowess. Life Of Agony are breaking new ground in heavy music. Hear them.

GAVIN BERTRAM

DAVID ARNOLD Shaken Not Stirred (East West VARIOUS ARTISTS Lounge-A-Palooza (Hollywood) In the continuing saga of raking the coals of a more suave time, these two compilations attempt to add the spark of the new to stylings of old.

Shaken And Stirred is a collection of James Bond movie themes, arranged by soundtrack composer, David Arnold (Independence Day, A Life Less Ordinary), and featuring such disparate bedfellows as Shara Nelson, Iggy Pop, LTJ Bukem, and Martin Fry. From the divine David McAlmont take on ‘Diamonds Are Forever’, through the dreary ‘Nobody Does It Better’ sung by Aimee Mann, to the diabolical 'Live And Let Die’, for which Chrissie Hynde has inexplicably been wheeled out, it’s a patchy quilt which covers this rather good concept. Techno sits incongruously beside straightfaced camp, and only Pulp really manage to add anything you need to hear on ‘All Time High’. David Arnold applies all the right tones of majesty and style, but these are Bond theme criterias that the originals had been forced to ace anyway. It’s another case of should’ve been, could’ve been, wasn’t quite, on Lounge-a-Palooza, even though it does manage to turn out a keeper or two by discs end. The concept is hard enough to pin down, with its collection of altrockers covering lounge, the ‘loungifying’ of recent songs, from artists vintage to contemporary, and an all-out original from Chris Bellew of Presidents of the USA. Then, Glen Campbell steps in to do the fat Elvis on ‘Wichita Lineman’, with the aid of Michelle Shocked and the Texas Tornados.

Standouts come from across the board, starting with Ben Folds Five’s swingin’ swing at ‘She Don’t Use Jelly’. Steve Lawrence and Eydie Gorme give ‘Black Hole Sun’ the treatment it begs for, and Fun Lovin’ Criminals surprise with Tm Not In Love’, parody or not. But I’m giving the cake to Flea and Jimmy Scott, for their ear-licking homage to ‘Love Will Keep Us Together’. It buries any queries of what this album was made for, by being the answer to the question in itself.

BRONWYN TRUDGEON

GAMUT Gorgo’s Sounds Supreme (Orbitor) This Wellington trio, although around for a few years now, have remained relatively low key. Hopefully this will change with the release of Gorgo’s Sounds Supreme. With a recorded sound that is both well developed and varied, Gamut capture their live intensity remarkably well. From the mellower moments of ‘Chill Pill’ and ‘The Diceman Cometh’, to the more guitar heavy, but equally groove-ridden ‘EI Casselero’ and ‘Toast’, Gamut undeniably have a surfeit of a very important rock ingredient. That is, not letting you stand still. With as much interest in Marley as Motorhead, Gamut’s prime interest is in the power of rhythm, rather than needless virtuosity. Add to this a great sense of humour and who could go wrong?

GAVIN BERTRAM

MURDER 1 Shopping For Porn (NMG)

Murder 1 are from New Jersey, which apparently gives them the right to be moronic sexist dickheads, and to boot, they have extremely limited musical ability. Think of the most boring, generic, hardcore wannabe band you’ve heard, and attach a bunch of lame sexual innuendo to them. Then underestimate their mental capacity. Playing cliched, dated music is a crime in itself, but when you factor in a hick mentality obsessed with porn... well. Suffice to say, these four losers are headed for a future flipping burgers just like their inbred, white trash relatives. And the world will be an infinitely better place for it. If this is ‘art’ I’m a fucking genius.

GAVIN BERTRAM