JD Twitch, one half of Glasgow clubbing legends Optimo, describes this track as being made “purely to amuse myself”. Which is how you should take it too. It’s a bit of unmastered fun, no release date, with JD Twitch trying his hand at Sleng Teng, the first computerized wholly riddim in Jamaican music. It also features vocals from Killa P of Roll Deep. Listen and read JD Twitch’s full explanation of how the track came about below.

JD Twitch feat. Killa P – Skeng Teng Sleng Teng

“I’ve been obsessed with the Sleng Teng rhythm for eons (if you have no idea what “Sleng Teng” is, read this –http://dandabber.blogspot.com/2012/01/riddim-review-sleng-teng.html?spref=tw). Over the years I’ve amassed an embarrassingly large number of versions and in the early days of Optimo would on occasion play a Sleng Teng half hour, to some people’s delight, and other’s complete horror. I’ll still happily play a Sleng Teng track or two whenever the opportunity arises.

I’ve long harboured the desire to make a Sleng Teng track, purely for my own amusement, and late last year had the Casio MT-40 that generates the bassline modified so I could go Sleng Teng crazy in the privacy of my own home. The modifications allow me to modulate and generally mess around with the sound in ways that the Japanese programmers of the machine back in the 80s could never have imagined.

After endless jamming I finally got round to constructing my own take on a Sleng Teng backing track. Next thing I needed to do was find a vocalist and thankfully my friend Joe Muggs hooked me up with Killa P from the Roll Deep grime crew who delivered exactly the vocal I was looking for.

After the track was finished I took it to Glasgow analogue Mecca, Green Door Studios and put all the stems onto quarter inch tape, routing some of them through Green Door’s home made spring reverb and their Roland Chorus Echo and then put the track back together again.

The original idea was to do a male vocal version and a female vocal version but the female vocalist I was going to work with went to Australia before i had a chance to record her. I may do that when she gets back or try to find someone else to fill her boots. Suggestions gratefully received.

As i said, I made this purely to amuse myself and I may or may not put it on vinyl but if you enjoy this 100th as much as i did making it then it’s been a successful mission. I’m pretty sure this will be my one and only foray into making a Dancehall track and I have to confess that the one downside of making it (and the multitude of alternative versions I also did) is that I have finally succumbed to a mild dose of Sleng Teng OD, at least for this week.

Please note that this has not yet been mastered.

Thanks to Prince Jammy and Wayne Smith for inventing Sleng Teng and thanks to S-CAT for the mods on the MT-40, Joe Muggs and DJ Raggs for the Killa P hook up, and of course, Mr. P for the vocals.”