Blak Twang - Speaking From Xperience

Racking up some 13 years in the UK hip-hop scene since his first 12s started bubbling up from SE8 back in 1995, the artist known variously as Tony Rotten, Taipanic and Blak Twang certainly has previous. Guest spots on Twang records gave crucial leg-ups to two of the scene’s most celebrated talents - Roots Manuva and Estelle - and he has outlasted any of his contemporaries of the ’95 vintage. Mention The Brotherhood or Silent Eclipse to any but the most obsessive trainspotters and you’re likely to be met with a vacant, quizzical look.

There are several reasons for Twang’s longevity. Firstly his unreleased opus ’Dettwork South East’ is regarded as UK hip-hop’s holy grail, an unflinching masterpiece, filtering Nas’ Illmatic-era project narratives through life on the Tanners Hill estate in South East London. His booming Nigerian tones still resonate and are instantly recognisable, in the tradition of many of hip-hop’s best loved emcees.

This stoic reliability is ultimately the making and downfall of his fifth full-length, ’Speaking From Xperience’. Since third album ‘Kik Off’ secured a hit with ‘So Rotten’, you can roughly separate Twang’s output into three categories, aggro rallying calls (‘We Gonna Win’, ‘Nah I Ain‘t Done‘), reflective slow-burners (‘Raplife’, ‘So Hard’) and reams of what could be termed ‘landfill dancehall’. Unfortunately, Tony’s predilection for Jamaican toasters and crooners often overshadows his better judgement, and the popularity of ‘So Rotten’ dangled a carrot he still seems to be hopelessly pursuing. The sheer length of the album tires at times also, there’s certainly at least a third which could be trimmed off and the woeful interludes don’t help much either.

Still fond of football-related similes and personification, (“Running round with no skills like you Robbie Savage”, “I’m not on another level, I’m the Champions League“) Rotten nonetheless shows he can keep up with the young bucks as on ‘Legends’ where he matches guest Sway’s rapid-fire flow. Estelle pops up on ‘Nu N’uh’ to lend her classy vocals and her contacts book as Kanye-cohort Rhymefest hooks up the disjoined cross-Atlantic collaboration ‘Tale Of 2 Cityz’.

While ’We Gonna Win’ skilfully links Jean Charles De Menezes with various other exhortations about crooked, racist governments and ’Champagne Lifestyle’ wittily bemoans wannabes living on a “Coca-cola budget”, the main problems with the majority of tracks here stem from unambitious, staid production, largely attributed to the conglomerate-sounding Silverstone Beats. New jacks and trendies may be Tony’s worst nightmare but there’s no doubting the revitalising effect of the likes of Toddla T and Metronomy on former running-mate Roots Manuva’s latest. Similarly, Ninja Tune production wizard The Bug worked wonders with the chaotic hybrids of London’s black music scenes on his masterful ‘London Zoo’ album. 

 Reminiscing, as he does on closer ’96’ may be one of Tony’s fortes, but he needs to do some looking forward if he’s to craft another gem on a par with his long-lost debut.

5/10

Plastic Little - Welcome To The Jang Haus

Exploding onto the party scene last year with a flurry of well-received EPs, Plastic Little have, up to now, struck the perfect balance between comedy and kudos. Riding on the coat-tails of Spank Rock’s filthy B-More beats and filthier lyrics, PL have established themselves as a wisecracking, self-deprecating bunch of b-boys, like a latter-day Pharcyde without the constant weed referencing.

‘Welcome To The Jang Haus’ is an amalgamation of debut US album ’She’s Mature’, mixtape ’Thug’s Paradise’ and some recent additions to their CV. Herve (AKA The Count Of Monte Cristal) contributes the two most club-ready tracks here, the cheeky, Jacko-sampling ’Cheap Thrills’, which has already been making the rounds as an instrumental and the squelching bass of ’La La Land’ - which coaxes a better performance from the PL emcees.

At their best, such as on early single ’I’m Not A Thug’ the lyrics are side-splittingly funny (with verses about the questionable benefits of living with a grandparent and being “mega middle-class”) whilst on the likes of the self-explanatory ’Cum Quick’ they’re simply puerile and lose all shock value. ’Boyz’ and ’Hola Plastique’ also manage to lay on the biting satire with a trowel. Bad meaning good or bad meaning bad, each track has points to make younger listeners reach for the fast-forward button when mum knocks to see what junior wants for tea. Maybe that’s why they invented iPods.

The only total misstep is the horrible ‘Candy Girl’ lift on ‘Sugar’ - they even manage to pull off crooning Morrissey’s ‘Heaven Knows I’m Miserable Now’ hook at one point - no doubt offending legions of Smiths fans and hip-hop purists in one fell swoop.

7/10

TV On The Radio - Dear Science

Sharing a release date in the UK with Kings Of Leon’s hulking, arena-bound fourth LP, ‘Dear Science’ is a lesson in a less linear form of progression from a band originally touted around the same heady time as the Followhill clan. While the irresistible songcraft which underpinned the band’s sonic explorations circa 2006’s ‘Return To Cookie Mountain’ remains firmly in place, the sound of the band has been reined in somewhat from the expansive, swirling soundscapes and layered effects which at times seemed to be devouring the band whole. While the central hub of Tunde Adebimpe, David Andrew Sitek and Kyp Malone is still firmly in place, it seems as though Sitek has taken more of a back seat this time, or at the very least toned down his studio practices to allow his cohorts to blossom fully. Having produced all over the place in the intermittent two years since ‘Return..’ from art-rock upstarts Foals to the debut album by one Scarlett Johansson, it’s understandable. It’s also worth noting that Sitek pushed the studio trickery even further in Johansson’s case, meticulously constructing wave upon wave of sound, and perhaps this time favoured a more pared-back approach.

None of this should suggest that ‘Dear Science’ is in any way a ‘straight’ or instantaneous album, I’m glad to come baring news that the Brooklynites are still as all-embracing in their influences, and aren’t afraid to add a few new ones into the mix. The excitable drum line that opens ’Halfway Home’ mimics ’Wolf Like Me’ but instead of cascading bass and guitar lines we are greeted by a classic ’Ba ba ba ba ba’ ad-lib and some well-placed handclaps backing up the lead vocal. The band’s admiration for doo-wop harmonies is well documented, but this track takes them into the realm of ’50s rock ’n roller vocal groups. When the guitars finally kick into the track late in the day, their impact is all the more arresting. Kicking back with super-fan David Bowie has clearly rubbed off on Malone in particular, as several of the tracks he fronts explicitly mine the snaking guitars of Prince and the Ashes-era Bowie and lay it on the line that TVOTR are definitely not adverse to the funk. The first of these, ’Crying’ benefits from the charms of Sitek’s favourite afrobeat posse the Antibalas Afrobeat Orchestra whose honking horns steal the limelight from Malone’s one-word chorus. ’Dancing Choose’ sets out with a low-end rumble and a ranting Malone rapping more like Anthony Kiedis than Chuck D, although the subtler chorus and jazzy squawks salvage the track while Malone continues raging against a “counterfeit community”. It’s interesting to hear TVOTR embracing hip-hop in a way they haven’t since the ultra-rare ‘OK Calculator’ album, perhaps finally unfazed by reporters’ blasé and lazy questions about black guys playing rock.

The orchestral flourishes towards the end of the subdued, emotive ’Stork And Owl’ are in sharp contrast to the bombastic, looped string blasts of ’…Cookie Mountain’s ’I Was A Lover’, creeping up into the foreground of the track’s sonic palette rather than exploding off the mixing board. The band clearly have the ability and vision to play it both ways when it comes to introducing classical touches to the rock idiom.

After this brief interlude we’re back into the groove of ’Golden Age’, the low-slung bassline and affected vocal further accentuating the adoption of early ’80s funk stylings into the band’s musical vocabulary. Rather than sounding forced, this style is a good fit for the band where it is utilised on ’Dear Science’, although it does draw more of a line in the sand between the two lead vocalists and their chosen musical vehicles. The lush piano and string combination of the dreamy, transcendent ballad ’Family Tree’ wouldn’t sound out of place on a Sigur Ros album and act as the perfect foil to Adebimpe’s yearning vocal which is maturing and putting the Peter Gabriel comparisons, which abounded around the last album particularly, to rest.

More attitudinal, confrontational poses are struck in ‘Red Dress’ but Malone juxtaposes his public stance, “Hey jackal, fuck your war”, with acute personal observation and contemplation, “I’m scared to death that I’m living a life not worth dying for”. The fractured beats and cooing backing vocals of ’Love Dog’ hark back to past glories, although the lead vocals are pure, isolated and not muddied by swarms of instrumentation. The simple melody and echo of ’Shout Me Out’ gives way to the album’s biggest stylistic shift - the frenetic drums which kick in half way through, although they’re accompanied by intricate guitar rather than booming bass, while this added sense of urgency prevails through the fraught ’DLZ’, where the laconic backing vocal plays against the increasingly frantic Adebimpe’s obtuse warnings of “death professors” and “the dawn of the loser forever“.

The highland-toned ’Lover’s Day’ features flute and horns just straying the right side of bagpipes and is a subtle, meditative conclusion to a album which manages to be challenging while always leaving the listener feeling, three full length albums in, that they are always in safe hands.

8/10