In our second Dragnet feature, Kev Kharas takes a monocle to the clubland smarts of Hot City‘s new FACT mix, examines what it is that sets Cold Pumas apart from the glad-glanded lo-fi motley and flounders in the beat-dragged drone of Utah’s Stag Hare.
via FACT magazine
"Come down operator with the ’99 remix!"
Hot City is an urbane dance proposition. Smart-cut and well-heeled, the anonymous London producer’s mix for FACT peers at turn of the century London garage through the eyes of a retro-futurist in 1993, 2-step rewired to sound leaner and lither, but still somehow retaining more traits from past bloodlines. Trapping wild jungle bass riffs and skull-shifting hardcore sounds within its rhythmic sweep, the mix rounds up all the stop-offs on Reynolds’ ‘ardkore ‘nuum for a night out and then drags them careening closer to the new century, a beat reunion for old skoolmates who’ve gone their own way but still share a trace of something common. Take it now, spray all summer.
Tracklisting:
DJ Rhythm Master – ‘It’s The Way’
DJ South Central – ‘Wicked Sound’
Urban Dubz – ‘Making Love (Dub Mix)’
Ruffneck Revival – ‘Movin’ On Up’
Duncan Powell – ‘Brake (4×4)’
10 Degrees Below – ‘Fill The Vibe’
Eruption – ‘Vicious Dub’
The Hackney Soldiers – ‘Da String Tune’
Mr Trix – ‘What Mus’ I Do’
DJ Delter – ‘Nobody Does It Better’
Gadget – ‘Volume 1’
Closer To You – ‘White’
Three 6 Mafia – ‘Stay Fly (UKG Mix)’
Jeremy Sylvester – ‘Electro Dreams’
MAD – ‘The Lighter’
via Vice, The Fader, Pinglewood
Cold Pumas have been getting around a bit of late and it’s easy to see why: the Brighton three duck and weave through recurring fright-mares of treble-led groove-punk in a manner that’s not unlike LA poster boys Abe Vigoda, a band rightly beloved by everyone on earth. What’s that famous saying? You’re never more than 3 feet from a lo-fi band? Whatever, it doesn’t apply here – like Sex Is Disgusting’s Andy Auld says here, “If 2009 is apparently characterised by a shambolic anyone-can-pick-up-an-instrument vibe then [Cold Pumas] are tightening the slack”. A cut above the rest of the flannel-shirt cannon fodder currently tempting projectiles, their racket possessed of a mania tougher and more distinct, shot through with still-catching-breath melody and odd electronic noise like oily bullet belts, their ‘Jela’ like gazing at new ground unfolding like computer game terrain outside an express train window. Like like like.
Stag Hare – ‘Allah’ and ‘Sage Bundle Yum Waarm Ye’
via No Pain In Pop
No Pain In Pop’s eye has been trained upon Stag Hare for a while now, but a pair of tracks sent to us by Garrick Biggs recently forced us into action. Hailing from ‘DREAMTIME UTAH’, the visceral bliss of Biggs’ drone stands apart from contemporaries because of the presence of percussion, Biggs’ beats tying his cloud sounds to the back of a van before dragging them along a dirt track, forcing them to shift when you imagine they’d rather drift and drone forever in interminable comfort. ‘Allah’ and ‘Sage Bundle Yum Waarm Ye’ are out at some point in the future, the details are vague.
