JAHCOOZI [GERMANY]
fish
changing time (movie)
another late contender for one of the most original releases of the year, also this week’s featured album on the fat planet radio show. jahcoozi first cropped up in my record bag on an old compilation from the wire magazine back in 2003, with the track ‘fish’ (mp3 above). on repeated hearings, the pared-down glitched elctronica made me think this was another member of the ever-growing and ever-fascinating berlin-based female electronic artist set. jahcoozi’s album proves just how wrong i was. great through this track is, the rest of the album is far more bounce-driven affair – from twostep to ragga to crunk to dancehall to deep electro-tech, jahcoozi take on some of the year’s emerging styles and appropriate them for their own ends – an album of dark polemics that just so happens to make your ass shiver at the same time. jahcoozi are vocalist sasha perera, robot kock on beats and oren gerlitz on bass. the fact that sasha perera has roots in sri lanka has opened the comparative can of worms marked m.i.a., which cuts both ways – a useful way into the band for fans of m.i.a. hungry for more in the same vein, but with jahcoozi’s roots so deep in electronica, it’s off the mark in terms of focus and direction. for more on jahcoozi, check out their label page at kitty-yo.
MONKEYTRIBE [SCOTLAND]
get with the program
pull the trigger once
on a not too dissimilar tip to the above, some long-overdue props to monkeytribe and mc soom t. if the latter name seems familiar, she cropped up as co-conspirator on the berlin-based bus album ‘middle of the road’ (released on ~scape), and also in 2003 on t. raumschmiere’s album ‘radio blackout’ album with the track ‘a million brothers’. since then she’s been working with the likes of the bug, the orb and warp’s dj maxximus, but her core project remains the glasgow-based collective, monkeytribe. originally born from a love of techno and house, years later monkeytribe’s latest releases have taken on a tough ragga-dub-r’n’b-electro style, the perfect foil for soom t’s flow. with an asian dub foundation remix in the bag for future release, and a new e.p. ‘dark side of the baboon’ due soon, here’s hoping that monkeytribe strike out wider and ensure that my home town is known for more than franz ferdinand and deep-fried pizzas. more info at monkeytribe.net.
BECK [U.S.]
black tambourine (south rakkas crew remix)
completing the dancehall-ish flavour of this post is this little nugget, courtesy of the fader. when reviewing this track, stylus magazine quipped “a remix of this caliber begs the question: does beck deserve it?”. of course there have always been, and will always be, those of us who frown on major artists appropriating new talent to rejuvenate their career or extend their tentacles into new fan bases. yet this case in point differs, as the remix can’t be found on beck’s remix album, ‘guerolito’ – it’s seemingly ‘mp3 only’. why beck chose not to include this track, remixed by the canadian / jamacian trio south rakkas crew, remains a mystery; as it is head and shoulders above some of the other mixes on there. south rakkas crew are well respected for their recent rhythms, ‘red alert’ and ‘bionic ras’, and with this bump up into the pop canon, we can expect to see the crew popping up all over the joint for remix duties in the near future.