The Bug "London Zoo"

Artist: The Bug
Album: London Zoo
Label: Ninja Tune
Release date: June 2008
Genre: Electronic
Style: Dubstep
RIYL: Boxcutter, Kode 9, Burial

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Tracklisting:
01. Angry
02. Murder We
03. Skeng
04. Too Much Pain
05. Insane
06. Jah War
07. Fuckaz
08. You & Me
09. Freak Freak
10. Warning
11. Poison Dart
12. Judgement
Total running time: 37' 12"
[MP3s courtesy of Allan's World of Music]

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[The Bug - Open MySpace page in a new window]

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[The Bug - Skeng - Video Clip]

"All the great British writer/producers of the past two decades have found their own trademark equilibrium between guest vocals and backing tracks. Massive Attack's first three albums all achieved this, as did Tricky's. All three Leila albums come to their own unique internal understanding, and the Chemical Brothers have never lost the knack of integrating a wide range of co-conspirators into a coherent scheme. But rarely has such a formidable array of vocal talent been so effectively marshalled as on this third album by the Bug, aka veteran noise artisan Kevin Martin.

From the subterranean rumble of Roll Deep Crew alumnus Flow Dan to the elasticated larynx of Roots Manuva helpmeet Ricky Ranking, London Zoo provides the perfect showcase for its colourful menagerie of MCs and singers. And the Bug's no-nonsense clank and grind production fosters a rare intensity of focus on this album's higher purpose, which is to take the eloquence of Linton Kwesi Johnson and Michael Smith's Eighties dub-poetry, and blast it into digital hyperspace.

It's probably fair to say that the UK dance subcultures that yield the richest musical harvests tend to be those whose creative terrain is most extensively irrigated by Britain's reggae tradition. And while dubstep started out feeling like a retreat from the upfront personal drama of grime, into a vague ambient netherworld of noodling sub-bass, London Zoo confirms its welcome drift into dub's turbulent inner space.

From the Taliban to Hurricane Katrina, this album's lyrical concerns fall on the darker side of doom-laden. But when you're living through times that make the Book of Revelations look like Wisden's Cricketers' Almanack, it's reassuring to hear music with the courage to face up to that. And from the mordant humour lurking in the rhyme scheme of Killa P and Flow Dan's 'Skeng' ('Evil... Worse... Nurse... Hearse') to Tippa Irie's commonsensical summing up of George Bush's betrayal of New Orleans ('America is a big superpower/They should have been there within the hour'), London Zoo puts a 21st-century twist on reggae's Babylonian rhetoric.

The rampant accessibility of the Bug's new music will come as just as much of a surprise to those who have followed Martin's cacophonous career since the halcyon days of God or Techno Animal, as it will to those for whom the idea of a British Bill Laswell means absolutely nothing. In its own apocalyptic fashion, London Zoo abounds with inspired pop touches. Like the way Warrior Queen's 'Insane' lapses into her own magnificently out-of-tune interpretation of Tears For Fears' 'Mad World', or Tippa Irie's 'Angry' starts out as something Xenomania might come up with for Girls Aloud. But it's in daring to ask the big questions like 'How did we get here, and where do we go now?' that this record's rage-filled exuberance evokes the spirit of such classic state-of-the-world addresses as Specials, Marvin Gaye's What's Going On and Black Flag's Damaged." [The Observer]

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Burial "Untrue"

Artist: Burial
Album: Untrue
Label: Hyperdub
Release date: 5 November 2007
Genre: Electronic
Style: UK Garage/Dubstep

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Tracklisting:
01. Untitled
02. Archangel
03. Near Dark
04. Ghost Hardware
05. Endorphin
06. Etched Headplate
07. In McDonalds
08. Untrue
09. Shell Of Light
10. Dog Shelter
11. Homeless
12. UK
13. Raver
Total running time: 50' 28"

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[Burial - Open MySpace Standalone Music Player]

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"That difficult second album then. Not content with having to follow-up on the success of his staggering debut, the kind of uncontrollable hyperbole electronic musicians have rarely had to deal with and the small matter of keeping his identity concealed from all but his closest friends (and some of those apparently don't even know), Burial has just gone and produced an album that appeared on first listen to satisfy even our most unreasonable expectations and, on repeat play, surpass them. "Untrue" is a much more emotive beast than its eponymous predecessor, a mood augmented by the vocal emphasis present on all but the short interlude tracks included on the cd edition. The most startling of these is the much-discussed "Archangel", a track framed by one of Burial's most devastating submerged-woodblock rhythms to date and devoured by an androgynous auto-tuned vocal that not only highlights Burial's spiritual descendance from UK Garage and 2-step but also his uncanny ability to create archetypal songs from the darkest, most foreign ingredients. As the legend goes, these pieces were all recorded deep into the night and the uncontrollable sense of loneliness and longing seeps out of every pore of this incredible collection of tracks. There's an overwhelming sense that, much like the abandoned streets and hazy luminescence of early-hours London, all normal rules of engagement have been suspended both musically and spiritually. This is music with a powerful, almost narcotic urge to connect with the outside world, like an emotional sleep-paralysis that imbues these pieces with an outsider aesthetic that seems neither forced nor self-aware, but beautifully ingenuous. And this is ultimately why (despite almost universal acclaim and legions of followers) no one has even attempted to copy Burial's signature sound - it's so removed from the everyday, daylight machinations of music-making that to have done so would have just been absurd. Towards the end of the album the majestic narcosis of the title track (an incredible piece of music that seems to squash a million different emotions into a barely contained mass of midnight percussion and exhausted narrative) makes way for "Shell of Light" - the cathartic turning point of the album and a quietly overwhelming push into slowly emerging daylight. The effect is both joyous and utterly startling, and ultimately extremely moving. Beyond all the myth-making and emotive resonance - "Untrue" is also an album that manages to offer percussive innovation and a submerged deviant funk that you will be as powerless to resist as we were on first listen - and if a better album has been released in 2007, we've yet to hear it." [source]

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Boxcutter "Glyphic"

Artist: Boxcutter
Album: Glyphic
Label: Planet Mu
Release date: 29 October 2007
Genre: Electronic
Style: Dubstep/Acid

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Tracklisting:
01. Glyphic
02. Windfall
03. Bug Octet
04. Rusty Break
05. J Dub
06. Chiral
07. Kaleid
08. Bloscid
09. Foxy
10. Lunal
11. Fieldtrip
Total running time: 55' 52"

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[Boxcutter - Open MySpace Standalone Music Player]

"To our mind Boxcutter has always worked at the more interesting end of dubstep, on the one hand we have the nu-rave jump up rubbish that seems be delivered each week in inexhaustible amounts, while on the other hand we have a handful of acts that seem to thrive on confounding expectations rather than fitting into a mould. Boxcutter is one such artist and his second album 'Glyphic' is a testament to this, containing a cross-generic spread of tracks you'd never expect to hear from most producers on the scene. Of course there are likely to be those who moan at Boxcutter's lack of purist ideals, but what do they know? Here we've got rumbling bass one minute and an analogue synth freak-out the next, with a bit of two step and jungle thrown in there for good measure. Boxcutter (Barry to his mates) is someone who isn't afraid to think outside the box when it comes to lapping up his listening material, and with a genuine passion for electronica, dub, jazz and, well, pretty much everything in-between I suppose we were always going to end up with quite an odd album. The fact that we kick off with something quite so unusual as the title track 'Glyphic' - an eight minute exploration into free jazz sax and deep, deep bass - only puts paid to these suggestions. Elsewhere we get the purist dubstep of 'Bug Octet', the breaks-heavy 'Rusty Break' and the crackling roots of 'J Dub', but for me the surprise highlight comes on the second half of the album which sees Boxcutter tackling squelchy analogue electronica. On 'Bloscid' we see the producer taking influence from Aphex Twin and Luke Vibert as he lets the drum machine cycle and the synthesizers blurt out hooky basslines and detuned lead, a style that pops back on 'Lunal' and for my money he's taking on the big producers and coming out on top. 'Glyphic' is a great dubstep album that manages to kick the spotty arse off a genre and shows the world that there's more to life than a rave sample and a comedy bass line. Let's hope he gets the credit he deserves." [source]

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