More dubstep from Pinch
-
Artist:
-
Album:
-
Track:
A couple of weeks ago, I put up Skull Boy Disco review, representing the first time I had ventured to write about dubstep. No one complained, at least not to me, so I got really cocky and asked for another dubstep record. This one is the double album by Pinch, a Bristol-based DJ and record label head. His Underwater Dancehall is described, feebly and with a minimum of insider jargon (which being an outsider, I don’t really know) below.A few more of these and perhaps I’ll know what I’m talking about. Enjoy.PinchUnderwater Dancehall(Tectonic/Multi-Verse)US release date: 20 November 2007UK release date: 2 November 2007by Jennifer Kelly If Ur Chest Ain't Rattlin' It Ain't Happenin'Like many of the big names in dubstep, Tectonic’s DJ Pinch is currently making a transition from a primarily singles and club-based medium to the full-length CD. Underwater Dancehall is his first album, a double-CD with one disc devoted to instrumental only versions of 11 tracks, the other incorporating vocals from Juakali, Yolanda, Rudee Lee, and Indi Khur. Unlike some full-length dubstep releases, however, including the remarkable Skull Boy Disco set, Pinch’s record isn’t primarily a reworking of existing materials, but rather a collection of tracks that were intended to work as a whole. The first disc, the one with vocals, is fairly accessible, the complexities of Pinch’s beats overlaid with sounds and styles that casual listeners will be able to relate to. It starts with album highlight “Brighter Day”, which is based on an earlier single, Pinch’s “Qawwali”. Here the cut’s cool, menacing beat, which flares suddenly with ominous melodica, is layered over with the dancehall chant of Juakali. Juakali, based in Brooklyn, heads New York’s Dub War nights and sings with the dub band Babylon Station. On “Brighter Day”, he is fierce and impassioned, his Jamaican-accented vocals answered now by a chorus of himself, now by an evil blurt of synthetic sound. It’s a fascinating mix of the organic and the electronic, third world heat and post-industrial chill, call-and-response communalism and heads-phones alienation. Juakali performs on three of the album’s ten vocal-embellished cuts, somewhat more conventionally (and less interestingly) on “Gangstaz”, and with an eerie, shout-spoken power on next-to-last “Trauma”. More here: http://www.popmatters.com/pm/music/reviews/52420/pinch-underwater-dancehall/Video:
Comments (8)