Heck, take it from a lazy cliche-spewing hack, for even a half-decent scope-out of today’s indie music scene you pretty much need this.
DJ Marcelle / Another Nice Mess Meets Her Soulmates At Faust Studio Deejay Laboratory (Klangbad)
Here is an extraordinary piece of work from the Netherlands’ (if not the world’s) most effortless record-hoarder, equally dedicated to the convergence of ethnic sounds with serviceable dance-floor tricks, a ritual deconstruction of modern human consciousness via tireless plunder-phonic efforts, the sheer atmosphere of slow-burning electronica rubbing shoulders with breakneck car-crash noise. Then there are the tribeswomen, Bollywood songbirds, riotgrrrls, female MCs and whateversexual Berliner techno types making up a good 75% of voice-boxes arching their arrows up through these four sides of vinyl.
Highlights include the muffled steel percussion underpinning Queen Salawa Abeni and Her African Waka Modernisers’ impassioned chants, finding it’s way into the liquid centres of Marcelle’s dub-step picks, Joan Of Ass’ I’m No Fake which pits a crude midi file against some cross between Shatner-dramatics and two kids squabbling over a dictaphone, a highlife track by Gatundu Boys based around the oscillating squeal of a baby which melts into Scout Niblett’s surprising, gaunt rendering Uptown Top Ranking. At one point Lenka Clayton’s cut-up, George W Bush’s State Of The Union Address 2002 (In Alphabetical Order) (in which the man repeats the word America until it becomes a rhythm in and of itself) is used to segue from a hearty Hammond workout into Bong-Ra’s untouched early jungle mastery. The flow is perfect – as sometime-smooth, oft-ugly and frequently unpredictable as the step-skipping beat structures which hold it together.
What especially strikes about this mix becomes more clear while glancing at the mammoth ‘thank you’ list in which an international community of musical movers and shakers untouched by hipness and prepared to lose money (from mashcore nutter Shitmat to internet radio man Peter Nelson) are drawn out by first name. What reach a proper DJ can have post-airwaves while floundering in a puddle of half-hearted Peel wannabes endlessly regurgitating the same old shit. Heck, take it from a lazy cliche-spewing hack, for even a half-decent scope-out of today’s indie music scene you pretty much need this.
Words: Mr Gav