BEATS with Dan Rule
Published: Music Australia Guide #80, September 2010.
Jules Chaz
Toppings…
****
There’s a loose, unhinged quality to Toppings…, the debut disc from Canadian beat kid Jules Chaz. Stretching across 21 instrumental hip hop cuts – with the addition of a guest vocal slot from Vancouver rapper Ishkan – the record is a loose weave of unlikely stylistic bedfellows. Strutting, wonky hip hop grooves and spacious breaks underlay crackling, Sub-Continental loops and reggae flavours; shadowy atmospheres drift among Twin Peaks samples other creepy musical obscura. It’s like Madlib rubbing shoulders with early career Flying Lotus, Oh No sharing tapes with Nosaj Thing. The sprawling post-hip hop diaspora continues to spread.
Wagon Repair/Inertia
Koolism
The Umu
****
MC Hau and DJ Danialsan (aka Koolism) are the definition of Australian old-school. The Canberra duo have been kicking classic, first generation-styled hip hop jams for the best part of two decades. Kinetic fifth studio record The Umu suggests they’ve got plenty left in the tank. Hau is on fire here, dropping characteristically intricate, socially conscious rhyme schemes amid Danielsan’s upbeat funk and soul-flecked rhythms and 80s-styled breaks. Check the meticulous unpacking of Australian cultural attitudes on Can’t Stand It, lurking boom-bap of cop critique Hanz High and bass-lead funk hook of Cash Monet for proof. Koolism may be from way back when, but they’re still kicking it with best of them.
Invada/Inertia
Quantic Presenta: Flowering Inferno
Dog With a Rope
****
Worldly DJ/producer Will Holland (aka Quantic), has made a great leap forward on Dog With a Rope, his second release as Flowering Inferno. Fusing organic Latin and Caribbean flavours into a collision of buoyant rhythms, humid dynamics and flourishing melodies, Holland – who has called Colombia home since 2007 – doesn’t just pay homage but actively re-plots the boundaries between both musical idioms. It’s a fascinating trip. Perhaps most telling is Holland’s respect for his source material. While he’s willing to test stylistic delineations, he does so with a rare lightness of touch. The results are at once authentically traditional and outwardly innovatory.
Tru Thoughts/Fuse
A-Diction
Walkin’ Alone
***
Melbourne duo A-Diction do a lot right on debut longplayer Walkin’ Alone. Following an EP and a couple of mixtapes, there’s barely a weak track on this rock-solid record. MCs Boltz and Breach are both competent (if not, at times, a little rugged) on the mic, and importantly, they’ve managed to acquire the services of a host of impressive producers. Man of the moment M-Phazes, Mules and Jase all drop stinging joints – none more so than the tripping boom-bap of M-Phazes’s One Fact – giving the record a more complex flavour than it might have otherwise achieved. It won’t blow too many minds, but this workmanlike effort will garner plenty of respect.
AD/Obese
Roots Manuva meets Wrongtom
Duppy Writer
***1/2
Though a revitalizing listen, Duppy Writer isn’t quite a new album from UK hip hop’s longstanding monarch Roots Manuva. Essentially a re-edit record, the project sees dub visionary Wrongtom go to town on a clutch of vintage Roots material, recontextualising some of his masterful verses in a bubbling dub/reggae milieu. There are some fine moments, including a perfectly plodding version of 1999 classic Juggle Tings Proper. But while pure dub is a great setting for admiring Roots’ pure charisma and faultless flow, Duppy Writer lacks the genre-crossing dynamism that has left Roots Manuva’s studio so revered. It is a companion work rather than a statement.
Big Dada/Inertia
