Unkle G – An Honest Meal (LP) [Equiknoxx Music]
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“Don’t touch this or, don’t touch that or, don’t trust this”, Gavsborg deadpans (with a smirk) on the intro to his sophomore album (and debut vocal album), about the counsel he received as a young 17-year-old upstart from “yes-men, henchmen, (and) studio-militant, hypervigilant” industry gatekeepers. An Honest Meal is the story of his own voice, “bumbaclot ignorance”, “in the studio” obsessions and sense of adventure triumphing over this army of detractors and circumstances, resulting in Unkle G (the artist and the album). And that voice, both literally and figuratively, is central to An Honest Meal. Throughout the album, his musings are held together by his firm and sonorous voice, with an almost-imposing Vybz Kartel quality to it.
Despite the candour of there being no “RZA character” within the group, Gavin "Gavsborg" Blair seems to be at the center of Equiknoxx “polyhedron sound”. Starting with 2016’s Bird Sound Power, the Jamaican collective (a duo at the time) has released three critically-acclaimed albums, breaking down their dancehall and Jamaican roots and casting the pieces back together (along with other influences) on a fresh sonic canvas. With time, the more skeletal sound of their early albums has shrubbed outwards towards varied, multihued nooks. Blair’s own brilliant debut from this year “1 Hour Service” (released on new his label Cassette Blair) is a tour-de-force in what the scope of beat music could be (or should be), stretching the riddim towards psychedelia (and perhaps where the cinematic yet scorching “Popcaan Said My Riddims Aren’t Good” was first conceived).
Gavsborg is a curator’s curator, with an ear for sound, a feel for cinema, a vivid stylistic sense, and seemingly effortless knack to put ideas and personalities together (and make them work). The tracks on An Honest Meal are more structured and accessible, but don’t give it away that easily too, slowly burning their gameplan into you with extended build-ups and repeated listens: the horns on the title track extends for just that extra length. The junglist riddims, drunk 4-4 excursions and multitude of guests that make up An Honest Meal, hardly veer from the sonic slant and unhurried pace of the LP. When the sanctified hook by Equiknoxx’s Shanique Marie takes hold of standout “Looking for a Shining Star” alongside rejuvenated bells and chords, all the absurdity and shitfuckery that underpins music making, as Unkle G humorously lays bare throughout An Honest Meal, feels like it’s all worth it.
Despite the candour of there being no “RZA character” within the group, Gavin "Gavsborg" Blair seems to be at the center of Equiknoxx “polyhedron sound”. Starting with 2016’s Bird Sound Power, the Jamaican collective (a duo at the time) has released three critically-acclaimed albums, breaking down their dancehall and Jamaican roots and casting the pieces back together (along with other influences) on a fresh sonic canvas. With time, the more skeletal sound of their early albums has shrubbed outwards towards varied, multihued nooks. Blair’s own brilliant debut from this year “1 Hour Service” (released on new his label Cassette Blair) is a tour-de-force in what the scope of beat music could be (or should be), stretching the riddim towards psychedelia (and perhaps where the cinematic yet scorching “Popcaan Said My Riddims Aren’t Good” was first conceived).
Gavsborg is a curator’s curator, with an ear for sound, a feel for cinema, a vivid stylistic sense, and seemingly effortless knack to put ideas and personalities together (and make them work). The tracks on An Honest Meal are more structured and accessible, but don’t give it away that easily too, slowly burning their gameplan into you with extended build-ups and repeated listens: the horns on the title track extends for just that extra length. The junglist riddims, drunk 4-4 excursions and multitude of guests that make up An Honest Meal, hardly veer from the sonic slant and unhurried pace of the LP. When the sanctified hook by Equiknoxx’s Shanique Marie takes hold of standout “Looking for a Shining Star” alongside rejuvenated bells and chords, all the absurdity and shitfuckery that underpins music making, as Unkle G humorously lays bare throughout An Honest Meal, feels like it’s all worth it.
December 2023
When the 925 project started, we wanted to move away from the drudge – the plodding, 4-4 doldrums – towards the promised land. But in a (seemingly) rich yet oversaturated music landscape of the COVID years, sensory overload kicked in way before imagined. Sprinkled in between, a glimpse of the promised land was in sight, or a mirage leading to it – L'rain with Fatigue, Kelela with Raven, Tirzah with Colourgrade, Marina Herlop with Pripyat, Jamila Woods with LEGACY! LEGACY! – few of these artists existed in a nexus of what the future (hopefully) sounded like, transcending genres, resisting accords, stepping on new colours. An effervescent mix that defied the seams of borders. Borders of all sorts.
With Gentle Confrontation, her third full-length on Hyperdub, the London-based Loraine James seems to be knocking on the door of that company. Her previous work explored glitched-out grime, ambient and experimental club music. Gentle Confrontation draws from it all, but feels more thematically unified: Throughout the album, a cinematic envelope of forlorn tonality hovers over, and carries across its nimble sequencing like a hazy dream sequence. “Speechless” fills the room with liquid Actress pads, and George Riley’s vocals carry a certain Aaliyah verve. Elsewhere, fellow R&B sensation Keiya’s gets screwed-and-chopped. “I DM U” features Black Midi-drumming that summon the spirit of Squarepusher’s Iambic Poetry. The urgent, mellifluous dissonance of “Tired of Me” feels central to Loraine’s intent, firebrand in spirit but guarded in outlook. Her words revolve around grief, identity and uncertainty, and quietly hang on to the moody carvings of sound.
Masterfully programmed, the volatile, syncopated rhythms that corbel the LP tug back and forth, mooring between rapid-fire glitch, indie-electronica and Last Exit-era Junior Boys. The varied use of vocals doesn’t always land, occasionally sitting at odds in the mix. But the diverse origin of the many guests, from R&B to Math Rock, opens passage into unexpected hallways. The highpoints of Gentle Confrontations prevail, and glide over its bends. The ideas feel stark but fleshed-out. The emotion feels true and piercing. The best music gives you that Déjà Vu. Like the ones who came before her, the arc of Loraine James young career feels destined for further revelation, as well as obligation: The future of electronic music, in safe hands.
October 2023
Theo Parrish feat. Marcellus Pittman – Ooh Bass
[Sound Signature]
Theo Parrish feat. Marcellus Pittman – Ooh Bass
[Sound Signature]
Theo Parrish is an institution. Over three decades, the Detroit artist has built an impossible catalogue, bending the arc of house music towards a misty, low-lying plain – tempo slowed down, atmosphere hazed out, its seeds handplucked from the Amazon that is black music. His label Sound Signature has anchored this mission, whilst Ugly Edits bodied the Parrishian spirit. The result is a unifying sound movement, the deepest jack, hitting your cerebral cortex in that sweet spot where pain and joy collide. To cap it all off, he is one of the baddest DJs on earth.
| Fellow Detroit marksman Marcellus Pittman straddles a similar bandwidth. His Unirhythm white labels contain some of the sharpest cuts put down on wax. Pittman takes soul-full house even further afield, into a future- zone of deadly, icy bounce. Like Parrish and Pittmann’s best collabs, “Ooh Bass” aims to transport. (“Night of the Sagitarius” on Essential Selections and “All Over” by supergroup 3 Chairs come to mind.) A woozy blend of organs, bells and sampled “oohs”, merry-go around snares & toms soaked in wool. During its 10 moving minutes, escalation arrives not when these elements double-up, but when the drums fade out to a singular bassline, or when soft jazz notes close out the track, amplifying the longing vocals that bind the track. A few years back, I attempted to play an all-night set of Theo Parrish records. Halfway through it – drenched, shaken, lost in a maze – |
| the notoriously difficult tracks of the catalogue started to unravel, like a message from a long-lost pen pal. The night had started out with “Love Triumphant” and ended with “This is For You.” Looking back, “Ooh Bass” would’ve fit right in at peak time, doing all the heavy lifting, smacking down non- believers with the sheer force of its will. |
September 2023
PLO Man – anonymousmaterial [Acting Press]
PLO Man’s music is built on hydrostatic pressure. Like a dam molded by an army of beavers, holding up a reservoir. Sound will seep through its lattice design, hover atop menacingly, or suddenly gush over in an uncontrollable manner – the timing left to the gods.
Exhibit A: “fig 001” from his long-awaited follow-up 12” to the sublime “Powerline”. The dam is a busy breakbeat, bolted up with steel klangs and scattered hats. Close to halftime, a vintage 90s chord wave, as signature as they come, engulfs the track. The resulting headrush is both a mind and body assault, the light landing from up above. On the flipside, the kinetic pulse of “fig 002” takes you halfway between a feverdream and cloudnine, teasing a bodyslam that never comes.
“fig 015” could be his finest work yet, the sound of Saturn and Uranus colliding, its swooping, luminous wall-of-pads channeled from a golden-era dream, breaking through the dub-on-dub onslaught. The head-stuck-in-a-beehive quality of this music never fails to mystify, and it’s a testament to PLO’s ear for theatre and atmosphere, that the cacophony feels as unifying as a mother’s touch.
A master DJ as he is producer, when he performed at a greenhouse garden villa in Sri Lanka, the plants came alive. PLO waited till around 7am to drop the swirling “TX-i”. Time stopped, and all the wild creatures of the night began to chirp away for an eternity. Piqued, I asked whether the track was a (secret) extended version, to which the answer was “no!” But then why did it feel so?
Basic Channel and Crydamoure created some of the best loopsmade by man (to the point of the ‘loop’ becoming a sovereign entity of its own, and playing a percussive role). Turning lil bits of historyinto eternal rhythm – innate, hypnotic twirl – like nature’s very best. PLO Man seems to take this concept and speedball it up a launch-ramp, into a spinning, thrilling, coalescing state. The Man is ballin’ outta control.
July 2023
Exhibit A: “fig 001” from his long-awaited follow-up 12” to the sublime “Powerline”. The dam is a busy breakbeat, bolted up with steel klangs and scattered hats. Close to halftime, a vintage 90s chord wave, as signature as they come, engulfs the track. The resulting headrush is both a mind and body assault, the light landing from up above. On the flipside, the kinetic pulse of “fig 002” takes you halfway between a feverdream and cloudnine, teasing a bodyslam that never comes.
“fig 015” could be his finest work yet, the sound of Saturn and Uranus colliding, its swooping, luminous wall-of-pads channeled from a golden-era dream, breaking through the dub-on-dub onslaught. The head-stuck-in-a-beehive quality of this music never fails to mystify, and it’s a testament to PLO’s ear for theatre and atmosphere, that the cacophony feels as unifying as a mother’s touch.
A master DJ as he is producer, when he performed at a greenhouse garden villa in Sri Lanka, the plants came alive. PLO waited till around 7am to drop the swirling “TX-i”. Time stopped, and all the wild creatures of the night began to chirp away for an eternity. Piqued, I asked whether the track was a (secret) extended version, to which the answer was “no!” But then why did it feel so?
Basic Channel and Crydamoure created some of the best loopsmade by man (to the point of the ‘loop’ becoming a sovereign entity of its own, and playing a percussive role). Turning lil bits of historyinto eternal rhythm – innate, hypnotic twirl – like nature’s very best. PLO Man seems to take this concept and speedball it up a launch-ramp, into a spinning, thrilling, coalescing state. The Man is ballin’ outta control.
July 2023
Kyle Hall – Technically Deep EP
Kyle Hall doesn't seem to mess around. On another perfectly titled EP (and fitting Bandcamp artwork), the Detroit godson straddles that fine line between heaven and the basement, with four sharp cuts oscillating in style/form, channeling the momentum of his first label (Wild Oats) towards his newer home (Forget the Clock).
From the time Theo Parrish bragged about the struggles of beatmatching "Kaychunk" (“maan!”), or perhaps even before that, everyone knew this was the Real Deal. And at the time, it seemed like it was only a matter of time, for the then 17-year-old’s music to unfold to even greater hype. That — or a sophomore slump of grand of scale awaited. And which path has Kyle taken since? Neither, it appears. Over the last decade and a half, his body of work has unfolded to a certain tireless rhythm, slowly carving out his own unhurried space in the canon. Albeit not to hype, but instead, to something more permanent: silent, serious and thoroughbred recognition, of a man so squarely in his element.
And where does ‘Technically Deep’ sit in this world? The ominous “Gherkin Roots” percussive stabs are foiled at the end by made-to-measure strings, that disappear faster than they appear. It’s melody-economy at its finest, as how few producers know it. “Alignment” flirts towards the photon rings around a techno blackhole, but maintains the same emotive centerline of (similar material of) Fred P. The wildly ricocheting “Pounce” ratchets up the dirt and combines it with even more dirt, a late-late-night burner. But the opener ‘Sit in Dat’ is the standout, blasting out the gate with a 1-2 of ferocious snares and bassline zigzag, before blossoming into a sublime glaze of pads and chord currents — crisscrossing and horizon- bound: from Theo Parrish basement-pressure to Norm Talley spaceflight, the track is a beautiful reminder, a brief slice of house music history. Kyle Hall Magic.
April 2023
Terekke – Fandn
Terekke – Fandn
© Ndagga![]()
New York city enigma Terekke returns to the dance floor, or what’s left of it, with a slice of dream-dub-house that’d make Terence Malick rework the 'New World' soundtrack. His first record in five (?) years, it follows footsteps in an ambient hallway.
His 2017 debut LP Plant Age (esteemed No. 100 on L.I.E.S.) submerged far-away desires in coats of tape fuzz and barely-there rhythms. 2013’s “Amaze” channeled heartbreak through a time-warp, slowly spinning on its axis in a timeless pulse. A sublime live act, Terekke also used to pack the most engulfing kickdrums we've ever heard. He marries these frequencies in “Fandn”, wrapping it in soft wool, foliage and a reverb carousel, as faint hi-hats trickle down from another life, and the kickdrum slowly melts into your heartbeat.
Released five months ago as a 7” (on the aptly named new label Plant Age Digital Sound, possibly his own), but it's our track of the month!
December 2022