October has been a busy month. But I'm keeping up with the listening, if I'm not keeping up with the recording so I have a fair backlog to work through.
And we're well into the top 10 already - only 9 more weeks till 2014, which feels utterly crazy but you can't argue with reality, and the East Bay is making it clear that winter is coming by refusing to be warm. No chance of getting a cheeky walk of the dog sans coat now...
But here we are - Gunshot. Patriot Games. Britcore. Britcore to me is the smashing together of Public Enemy levels of hyperbole, a much higher tempo beat, liberal use of movie samples and blustery scratching. You get this in abundance all over this record: World War 3 borrows heavily from War Games (THIS IS A RED DASH ALPHA MESSAGE IN TWO PARTS. BREAK! BREAK!). Patriot Games starts off with a "Shall we play a game" before going into a crazy flute break. The opening track, Manhunt, is a radio tale of Gunshot escaping the interception squad. Throughout the beats are heavy and, critically, fast. It's unclear how the three piece are holding up today - only White Child Rix is pictured in the article, Mercury repping World War 3, and Alkaline being absent. The titles are gloomy: World War 3, Bullets Entering Chest, Reign of Terror. But the pace is relentless and it packs a punch.
Bullets Entering Chest is a merry go round with drums punching the mix, the beat is cut up but to the point, scratching lifting the tune. What's been so enjoyable about the late stages of the list is how high the quality is and how distinct the music is from US hip hop. There are elements of it here, the scratching parts and film samples sounding vaguely like things I've heard before. But the tempo! Totally unique, and the play off between the beat and rhyming is pure delight.
One of the best things about the top ten is that they've got pictures of the group now (though only one here) holding the record from the past. It's a bizarre reminder that the majority of these groups are long gone but the music is eternal. I'm feeling increasingly detached from my home land at the moment, partly because I'm busy and partly because I read the news much less these days. A flick through the top ten suggests that these records are obscure by most standards and it feels shameful that they languish in obscurity - I'm sure the time will come but the quality is so astonishingly high it makes me feel a little homesick.
But anyway - here's GUNSHOT PLAYING ON THE BEAT! Full points to anyone who can name the weirdo guitarist and explain why the Beat was successful despite the lack of the studio audience:
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