Disclosure – ‘Help Me Lose My Mind’ (Paul Woolford remix)

Joe Muggs: Disclosure good, Woolford great, London Grammar *Harry Hill wavy hand* hmmmm, not sure.  Altogether very pleasant indeed. (7)

Steve Shaw: There’s a delicate balance for mainstream remixes – more so these days than yesteryear – where you’re not allowed to remove too much of the original, you can’t give the punters any ideas about more interesting music out there, yet you’re still expected to bring something ‘edgy’ to the table. Props to Woolford, then, for treading that fine line so well (he probably did it first take, too). There’s going to be a lot of people in Broad Street clubs drunkenly copping off to this. (7)

Brad Rose: This is boring and rather flaccid.  Hannah Reid sounds good enough, but there’s just nothing interesting enough going on here to make me care. (4)

Chal Ravens: In which Paul Woolford plays the reckless big brother at the house party, hijacking the stereo and slipping cheap rum into the punch – as if Disclosure fans needed any help getting giddy. Dumb, implausible fun, like the kind they have on Skins. (6)

John Twells: I’m about as interested in listening to Disclosure as I am going to ‘live graffiti’ shows, but Paul Woolford has done plenty here to strip away most of the tedium. The choppy piano’s clearly the star, but Woolford even manages to make the drowsy vocal sound ten times more compelling than it did on the original. Job well done. (7)

6.2

Gabriel Saloman – ‘Boots on the Ground’

Brad Rose: Saloman’s Adhere was one of experimental music’s best albums of 2012 and if ‘Boots on the Ground’ is any indication, Soldier’s Requiem is going to repeat that in 2013.  This is a beautiful piece of music that has stayed stuck in my brain long after it ended. Desolation rings out from the opening notes and is only heightened with the bombastic drumming and fuzzed-out synths bring everything to head. Outstanding stuff. Saloman continues to make the best post-Yellow Swans racket to my ears. (9)

Chal Ravens: There’s an awful lot of drizzle and misery to wade through before the cacophonous distortion nudges you awake at the halfway mark. It’s surely intended to be epic and stirring, but ends up rather affectless; guitar lines plodding aimlessly through marching drums and pattering rain. I concede that may be the point; would need to listen to the rest of the “requiem” (oh, the pomposity) to make sense of it. (4)

John Twells: This is right up my street  – distant guitar, field recordings, militaristic snares and distortion. The whole album’s ace, but ‘Boots on the Ground’ is certainly the point where all of the ideas come into focus. (8)

Joe Muggs: Dig it. I’ve been planning a new Thousand Tons Dream mix and this could easily form a centrepiece for it, probably with some serial killers’ confessions mixed over it or something. He really loves the textures of his sound, eh? It’s got a super enhanced tactile quality, not always pleasant but really intense, like when you have a real bad fever… (8)

7.3

Clams Casino – ‘Crystals’

 
Steve Shaw: All throughout this I was thinking it couldn’t get more doomy, and yet every few seconds he pulls something new out of the miasma. (9)

Joe Muggs: Dunno why but this guy just never moves me, and this is no exception. All the elements are present and correct, and there’s a good swing to it too, but it never takes flight. That breakdown and drop back in should take your breath away but it just sounds like, “Oh hey, I’m taking away all the parts of the music, and oh hey there, I’m putting them back again, cool.” (5)

Chal Ravens: Smells like Clams Casino, sounds like Clams Casino, must be Clams Casino. Simply awesome super-heaviness, even though we’re inured to his monster blend of blunted bludgeonry by now. Needs rappers. (7)

John Twells: You can spot a Clams production from miles off, and ‘Crystals’ is no different. I love how he manages to take elements that are totally overused right now – ‘cheeky’ synths, saturated 808 kicks – and turn them into something entirely different altogether. (8)

Brad Rose: If you’re a fan of Clams Casino, this will be right up your alley.  If you’re not, it won’t because it’s grade-A, no-surprises Clams. I, however, am a fan. (6)

7

Wiley ft. God’s Gift – ‘And Again’

 
Brad Rose: That bass line just gets me every time. Grime wars are good for everyone. (6)

John Twells: Wiley’s always good value, but I can’t help but think ‘And Again’ is just a tiny bit dull, for his own standards at least. It’s good enough, but I just listened to the track three times in a row and don’t remember a damn thing about it. (6)

Steve Shaw: Kind of a slow Ghislain Poirier, this is a nice curveball. It’s pretty much a token banger though; I don’t think this will stay in any DJ sets for more than a month. In that respect it’s removed from his mainstream output, but not drastically. (6)

Chal Ravens: Cracking beat, delightfully underplayed delivery, and sets a pretty high standard for the album, I’d say. Stay in this lane, Wiley (7)

Joe Muggs: Splendid. It’s impossible to take any Wiley track alone, it’s all part of the unending stream of consciousness that is Cowieworld… His beats for the War Dubs things have been absolutely outstanding though, and this is pretty fresh. There’s no dynamite lines, it feels like he’s marking time a little bit, just letting you know that – as he says in the last verse – “I exist”, but even Wiley just existing is enjoyable to listen to. (7)

6.4

Randomer – ‘Bring’/’Curtains’

 
Steve Shaw: This is kind of like cleaned up Africans With Mainframes, which is something I can get behind for any kind of dancefloor with aspirations towards the truly psychotic. (8)

John Twells: This is the sort of dance music I can’t resist – sleazy, druggy and slightly terrifying. It’s a far cry from the noise set’s skinny, brittle 4/4 experiments – it’s overdriven and nasty, but never ever loses sight of the fact that it’s supposed to sound fucking obliterating when it’s being blasted out of a massive soundsystem. Proper. (8)

Joe Muggs: This lad is one of the best out there at the moment. I’m a sucker for his more obvious stuff, ‘House Banger’ being one of the tracks of the year, but these deeper cuts are a natural fit for Hemlock and the slow, ugly grind and subliminal acidy stuff in ‘Curtains’ is just brilliant. (8)

Chal Ravens: Just having a quiet LOL amid the swampy depths about reviewing a track called ‘Curtains’. I guess it’s meant in the figurative Bugs Bunny sense (‘It’s coi-tains for you Rocky – coi-tains!‘) but it’s still amusing to pair soft furnishings with such fantastically fucked up techno. As ever, Randomer smashes it. (8)

Brad Rose: If cake wasn’t a made-up drug, this is the kind of music you’d hear at cake music festivals that happened underwater and where everyone had evolved to the point of having gills.  Or, in other words, it fucking rules. (8)

8

Black Milk – ‘Dismal’

Joe Muggs: That’s quite Sly Stone ‘Riot’… a LOT ‘Riot’ in fact. Not sure it warrants mega excitement, but it’s a really solid bit of work. (7)

Brad Rose: I loved Album of the Year and the first single off the upcoming No Poison, No Paradise, but ‘Dismal’ has utterly infected me.  I can’t stop listening to the creeped-out bass groves and slow-mo rhythms.  The description of ‘a theoretical jam session with John Carpenter and Madlib’ is so spot-on and so in my wheelhouse, I’m helpless.  Can’t wait.  (8)

Steve Shaw: Dismal. Foul. Ugly. All that bad shit. I enjoyed Chance’s Acid Rap this year, but I miss cartoon rap of the Doggystyle era, and this comes nicely close. Hallowe’en is my holiday of the year anyway, so anything even vaguely spooky and I’m all over it like gore on Bruce Campbell. (7)

Chal Ravens: Slight, yet beguiling. It’s a strange choice for a single (or “official album leak” or whatever we’re calling them these days) what with its lack of a hook or any especially quotable moments, but the atmosphere is well-crafted. (6)

John Twells: I’ve always liked Black Milk, but the couple of tracks I’ve heard from his next album sound leagues ahead of his previous work. ‘Dismal’ isn’t quite as gripping as its excellent predecessor but it’s still cracking stuff, blending a John Carpenter-esque synth part with a skeletal beatbox rhythm. It’s not a million miles away from Funcrusher, and that’s all that needs to be said. (7)

7

All About She – ‘Higher’ (Preditah remix)

Joe Muggs: Is Midlands bassline reverse-engineering itself to re-invent 2-step?  This and the upcoming TRC single both seem to suggest so.  This makes me stop being a slob, want to brush my hair, shave, go to the gym, get some Moschino clobber, soup up my car and generally smarten my act up… Very good. (8)

Chal Ravens: Love the disjunct between the twinkling treble and silky lady-larynx and the whomping sub-bass writhing underneath. Bad (meaning good). (7)

John Twells: I’ve got mad love for Preditah (and not just cuz he’s from Brum) but he’s way better than this remix might suggest. I can hear what he’s trying to do, and classic garage tropes are right up my street (Broad Street, to be exact) but the vocal is maddeningly flat. It’s not his fault of course, I guess there’s only so much you can polish a turd. (5)

Steve Shaw: …and here comes Preditah with another excellent example of how to play Top 40 Remix and win. You can hear he’s put the effort in to make something he’ll be happy with, somewhere between Liquid & Envy and the underground – i.e. the true Midlands way. (7)

6.8

MC Romeo and Brian The Robot – ’21 Seconds’
(Confused.com version)

Steve Shaw: Yeah, that’s definitely not his car. (0)

Joe Muggs: Romeo well and truly done. (0)

Brad Rose: Had my day not begun with me cleaning my daughter’s shit-explosion out of the carpet, I would not believe I was awake and that this was real.  My god.  (0)

Chal Ravens: Well, at least the ad meets the exacting quality standards we’ve come to expect from the average grime video. (0)

John Twells: There’s a great parody of the Black Eyed Peas’ descent from ‘conscious rap’ into industrialized pop nonsense by US comic Nick Kroll that ends some time in the future with the band producing a nonsensical baby-voiced instructional video teaching children about using the toilet. This is actually worse, and it’s real. (0)

0.0

Final scores:

Randomer – ‘Bring’/’Curtains’ (8)
Gabriel Saloman – ‘Boots On The Ground’ (7.3)
Black Milk – ‘Dismal’ (7)
Clams Casino – ‘Crystals’ (7)
All About She – ‘Higher’ (Preditah remix) (6.8)
Wiley ft. God’s Gift – ‘And Again’ (6.4)
Disclosure – ‘Help Me Lose My Mind’ (Paul Woolford remix) (6.2)
MC Romeo and Brian The Robot – ’21 Seconds’ (Confused.com version) (0)