Clicks, Whistles and Radio Rips 2 (Fact Magazine, 3/08)

Tom Lea and Raven Baker do the hard work for you, sifting out the new musical gems that the internet has thrown up over the last month. This month they’re spoiling you with hot off the press tracks from Ruff Sqwad and Skepta, an exclusive DJ Magic grime mix, and interviews with dubstep innovator Grievous Angel and Baltimore lynchpin Jason Urick.

DJ Magic – FACT Magazine Mixtape
(Download: Sendspace / Rapidshare / Divshare)

After last month’s set from Toddla T, this time we’ve drawn for Dirty Canvas resident DJ Magic blessing you with a half hour mix of grime vocals, including an exclusive Lee Brasco cut and recent tunes from Wiley, Ruff Sqwad and Ghetto. Dirty Canvas is the best grime night in London right now, so if you’re around on the 29th of this month, make sure you get down to the Rhythm Factory for Ghetto, Griminal, Sunship, Magic, Oneman, Logan Sama and more…

There’s been a slew of quality dubstep releases since our last column: new twelves by Ikonika and Zomby on Hyperdub (the latter with a Rustie remix on the flip), two new Skull Disco twelves and Untold’s EP on Hessle Audio, featuring the obscenely good ‘Purify’ – a pulsating tribal bass workout with a drop that recalls Shackleton’s ‘I Want To Eat You’. In contrast, grime and vinyl are like non-speaking cousins in dire need of Jeremy Kyle, but one of the only two labels in the scene that seem to be putting out wax, No Hats No Hoods, are releasing Ruff Sqwad’s new track ‘Ruff Sqwad Man Dem’. Watch the video above, where the crew’s boat shoes get traded for skull necklaces, and Rapid adds Gianfranco Zola to the list of Chelsea players referenced in their songs. The single should be out in April.

It’s not like the grime scene’s asleep though, just plastic intolerant. DJ Spyro and Boy Better Know came away from the third, dubstep-dominated FWD vs Rinse FM night at The End with equal plaudits. Much has been made of Spyro’s rapid fire CD mixing, but Boy Better Know’s Maximum wasn’t far behind, never letting a track hang for more than a minute before mixing in the next beat, and pulling out classics like Wiley’s ‘Eskimo’ and Ruff Sqwad’s ‘Pied Piper’. Since that amazing set with Wiley from two winters ago, he’s been one of the scene’s best DJs, and it’s probably not stated enough.

There’s also been a trio of recent vocal tracks from the group. ‘Wearing my Rolex’, Wiley and Bless Beats’ grime-cum-electro tale of falling in love too fast has now been signed to Atlantic for a proper release, and Wiley and Skepta’s follow-up ‘Rolex Sweep’ further reduces two top boy MCs to hook machines, reminiscent of how Timbaland used Justin Timberlake’s voice in their tracks together. After a lot of sensible talk about communicating with his neighbour and making himself accessible, it’s refreshing to see Skepta go back to talking about skengs on ‘Nokia Charger Wire’.

In the month Kano announced he was quitting 679 to go back to his grime routes, Boy Better Know’s tracks are proof that you can be adept at both grime and pop and still stay true to your fanbase. In other news, watch out for a trio of great mixtapes: Trim’s Soulfood Volume 3, Riko’s The Truth and Ghetto’s Freedom of Speech.

Also well worth your time and money is Belief is the Enemy, a soon-to-be-released album by Sheffield based producer Grievous Angel. The album will be out on Electrik Dragon as a double CD – the first disc is the album, the second a mixed version. Grievous Angel describes the album as a “different collection of music – there’s dubstep but also ragga techno, that both reaches back to an alternative history of the genre and reaches forward into the crossover between dubstep and 3:2 techno/house.” It’s music of today, but with a real sense of history and a desire to move things forward. We’ve heard the tunes and they’re wicked, so we gave the Angel a shout to gain more insight into the process behind the album:

There’s a real range of stuff on these tracks: wobbly basslines, dancehall vocals, fast paced techno… ‘Soundman Tribute’ reminds me of early grime at points, albeit a more subtle appropriation. How long has this record been in the making?

“‘Soundman Tribute’ was the most recent addition. I did that in October, after the album had actually been delivered, right after seeing Mala play. When the label boss heard it, he played it out immediately and got such a big reaction he insisted on it going on the CD. You’re very kind to say it reminds you of early grime, that’s definitely an aspiration! Some of the album does go back to that era, ‘Culture Killer’ for example.

Back in 2002, I’d just moved out of London and was coming out of a very intense relationship with 2step Garage. I had this sound in my head that was high energy, techno style, but rhythmically founded in dancehall and garage, with massive bass, loads of noise, and MCs. Of course at the same time you had grime and dubstep emerging and rapidly moving into that territory, with The Bug coming out in the middle a bit later on, but my take on it had this acidic edge that was different. That ragga techno stuff is like a squidgier, trippier version of what Skream and Benga are doing so brilliantly now.

Around 2003, I got a couple of nice messages from Kode9 that encouraged me to keep it up, and I started switching the tempo up to 138. The turning point was after the album offer came through, when I met MC Rubi Dan. The label guy suggested it, and coincidentally I’d just played with Heatwave at a C90 bash in Sheffield at midsummer. I gave Rubi a call and we met up at these amazing studios owned by a mate of [Woofah magazine co-editor] John Eden’s. It was high up in a Hackney office block where they were making this Jamaican Western movie set in Hackney. Rubi just smacked it.”

I know you’re a Swans fan – has that factored into these tunes at all? ‘Lickle Friction’ has that real industrial rattle to it…

“Ha! They were an awesome band at their height, or rather depth. Absolutely terrifying noise – even DMZ doesn’t come close. I do have this fantasy of doing a dubstep refix of ‘A Screw’. Really focusing on the strung out, demonic funk that Swans had by the bucketload. Their grooves are absolutely infectious.

The difference with dubstep is that there’s no space with Swans, it’s designed to be claustrophobic. You could turn ‘A Screw’ or ‘Holy Money’ into a number of really good halfstep hybrids using anyone from Cloaks to Komonazmuk to Distance to Caspa as reference points. And it’d have a hell of a lot of emotional depth. There’s this discordant four note guitar solo in ‘A Screw’ that’s just begging to be looped. I suppose Mick Harris is already there. ‘Lickle Friction’ was done a long time before [Coki's] ‘Spongebob’ or anything like that, but it was designed to have this industrial hyper wobble to it, feeding the sound that a venue makes when it’s being shaken by a PA back into the music that feeds the PA. How it’s going to sit with the r’n’b stuff I’m doing, I don’t know!”

Before I even read your description of the record, I was listening to your tracks and thinking about them as another expansion of dubstep’s sound, similar to the techno crossovers from last year that you mentioned and the twisted hip-hop that Kode9’s been pushing. Did you originally set out to make something disparate from the sound most people associate with dubstep?

“No. When it started there wasn’t really a dubstep to differentiate from. I’m doing stuff that’s part of a UK bass heritage that reaches back to Tackhead / On-U Sound, Saxon, Renegade Soundwave, Loose Ends, Soul II Soul, UK Bubblers… that vast ocean of bass music made by both black people and white people, but which has at its heart the UK-centric vision of Jamaican and US black music. Dubstep and grime are both part of that rich heritage and I’m mining this tiny seam of rhythm at the edge of it. Dubstep is a lot deeper and richer than the halfstep sound that’s its trademark.”

Do you think living outside of London contributed to the record’s sound? A lot of the most interesting records to come out recently have come from outside the capital.

“If I was still in London, I would have tried to make it a lot more different to contemporary London sounds. As it is, I’m as obsessed as anyone else with what happens in five or six London postcodes. London’s in my blood. I grew up in the East End/Essex borders – I was a Suburban Base youth who went to jazz funk nights in the sticks – and I don’t need to live in London to feel it within me. I actually feel much more emotionally connected with London now that I’ve moved out – it’s a shite place to live but a great place to visit.”

Tell us about the title: Belief is the Enemy…

“It’s that old paradox: the ideas we have about the world constrain our ability to deal with life; yet it’s the ideas we have about the world that are the fabric of what makes life valuable to us. It’s the old hippy saying: convictions cause convicts. But without belief in your self, you can’t survive; at some level you have to have faith. That’s why the second CD, the mix CD, is called Believe in Dub. Believe in the space that music opens up. Believe in the music that space opens up.”

Another lot to watch out for, Brooklyn trio Soiled Mattress and the Springs are set to make Henry Mancini cool again. Collecting the vinyl-only Springtime E.P. from L.A. label Teenage Teardrops and eight new tracks, British label Upset the Rhythm recently released Hong Kong Bong, Soiled Mattress’ first full-length of freaked elevator jazz. Obviously, if you want to experience the full effect of their cornball ebullience, you gotta see them live. Those in the U.K. are in luck as Soiled Mattress will be touring there with L.A. bubblegum skate punks, No Age, this May. In the meantime, check out this ridiculous vid – equal parts neon abstract and handyman literalness – for our personal fave, ‘Phillips Head’.

Another group we love, Heartsrevolution, have a handful of London dates scheduled for London in early April. They’ve already been featured on FACT’s Tracks of the Week, and you’ll learn much more about them in a future interview in the magazine. The Switchblade E.P., featuring the incredible ‘Digital Suicide’, should be out in April on Kate Moross’ Isomorphs label, on cotton candy vinyl. While you salivate in anticipation for that, check out both versions of ‘Digital Suicide’ on the band’s myspace, and download this IHeartComix mixtape featuring Heartsrevolution, Radioclit, and long time Clicks favs The Death Set.

So often, when it comes to press coverage of the underground, it’s the musicians who get most of the glory. Yet behind the scenes, there are innumerable, equally fascinating stories that remain unsung: the kids setting up shows in church basements, running record stores on shoe-string budgets and sinking their savings into starting all-vinyl labels, and we feel it’s equally – if not more – important that they get their due. So when Clicks had the chance to sit down with laptopper Jason Urick of Baltimore-based noise outfit WZT Hearts (pictured right), we probed into his other, backstage life. While he’s no stranger to the limelight, he’s more likely to be found manning the sound system or hauling out post-show trash at Floristree, a popular Baltimore warehouse venue that doubles as his home. Over crepes at a quiet lunch counter, Urick detailed how running Once.Twice.Sound, an experimental electronic music festival-cum-record store, introduced him to the likes of Dan Deacon, Ponytail and Ecstatic Sunshine:

On the Once.Twice.Sound Festival:

“One of the first things I wanted to do in Baltimore was bring some bands here. Bands I liked from Chicago and bands that I had seen come through Chicago that didn’t seem to be coming through here. In 2001, I had a bunch of different electronic artists that were asking for shows the same weekend in Baltimore. I had just met Chris Moore [of While] and Chris Cody [of Diskette]. They were the first people I met here doing electronic music, along with Mike Heleta who is in WZT Hearts now. So, I put everyone I knew locally who was making electronic music [in the festival]. We had Andreas Berthling from Sweden, TV Pow from Chicago [and] Twine.”

Why did you not do it in 2005? And were you starting up the record store?

“Me and [festival co-organizer] Ben Parris were both like, ‘We lost a lot of money on the last one.’ We were both tiring out. Ben was starting to play more music and I had just started doing WZT Hearts. I wanted to start working on my own music, you know? I had always taken a back seat with my own stuff to promote other people’s things. Which I love! But, then the opportunity to start the store came about. “

You spent years working in record stores…

“Since I was 18. That was all I knew.”

Was it one of those situations where you had worked for other people and you had learned everything you don’t want to do?

“There was definitely a dissatisfaction. I started to really like the idea of places like Other Music [in NY] and Aquarius [in San Francisco]. My friend in Chicago had a place, Weekend Records, for a few years. He had a tough time too, lasted about as long as I did. I wanted to do something like that. My store could have gone better, I could have done a lot of things differently. Just a lot of factors, like rent, and CD sales going down. Charles Street is not a really good shopping area.”

It’s deceptive because there’s a music school right there [Peabody Institute] and an art school [Maryland Institute College of Art].

“The amount of people who came in from Peabody is minimal. People who are studying music all day, every day, probably the last thing they want to do in their free time is buy music. Primarily, most of my business was friends and MICA kids. A lot of my friends now, roommates, and a lot of the bands that are big in the city now, I was fortunate to be the store right down by them. I met the Ecstatic Sunshine kids through there, Ponytail, Dan Deacon.”

A lot of them were students at the time?

“They were younger and coming in to give me flyers and CD-Rs for their bands. At the time, Lexie [of the Lexie Mountain Boys] was booking the Talking Head, [she's] a friend of mine. I think people who have the clubs get really set in using the same bands over and over and they are very excited to hear more. I remember calling Lexie a bunch of times and saying, ‘Hey I have to burn you this CD-R of this young group from MICA. You have to do something with them.’ “

I remember going into your store and you would be sitting there and no matter what I asked for you knew exactly what it was. With the kids coming in, I can see them coming to you as like, The Guru.

“I wouldn’t use that.”

I don’t mean in the creepy 60s way.

“I know. It was nice. The only reason I know about a lot of the things I do is because there was a store in Silver Spring, MD [when] I was growing up, called Vinyl Inc. I’d go in and mention something to the guy who owned it and he would just immediately rattle of all this other shit I had to check out.”

Which is like what you were doing at your store.

“Yeah, to some degree. But, a lot of these kids had a surprisingly good head start on the music they were making. The people that I’m still really close with were the younger kids who were definitely hungry to learn more, to hear more. They were kids I really respected. In the years since they’ve really proven [themselves]. Outside of Baltimore people are pretty aware of them right now, obviously.”

Next month’s column will feature the second half of our interview, wherein Urick delves into all things Floristree, from the venue’s origins, the madness of hosting Wham City’s Whartscape festival, and the Weedsnake prix-fixe, guest-chef dinner events hosted there each month. We’ll also feature a documentary from Baltimore film-maker N.O. Smith with words from the man himself, and plenty more good stuff for your ears. For now, we’ll leave you with Adam Gonzo’s new mix, Dance Party For Dummies 3 . Enjoy.

Words: Tom Lea and Raven Baker