Pearsall's Tunes

Elsewhere:

Purpology reviews Kano's new video Remember Me, which you can see at Kano's site. Bizarre enthusiasm levels for what is, how shall I say, a massive piece of shit. Easily the worst tune he's done. And der kinder agree! Only made 71 in the UK singles chart last week. Pfft. Why don't any of these people have faith in their own music? It's baffling. Salsa? I mean wtf. Enough venting.

Last Thursday's Logan Sama show on Kiss FM. Tracklisting here.

Thoughts on some of the tunes:

- The God's Gift dub that opens the show, 'Only God Knows What I've Done', is pretty serious. Awesome production from Rapid, single orchestral stab and dubby bassline and choppy beat. Lyrically, well, is this, as they say, 4Real?

- The remix of 'Heartache Avenue' is so vastly better than the original that my brain hurts to even think about it.

- Shizzle 'I'll Be There For You' - Nice fluffy summer tune. A rare example of a lighter tune that doesn't sound like a poorly-executed cynical "let's make a softer tune for the ladies". Nice.

- Skepta is pretty dope for someone who has only been spitting seriously for about six months. Don't like the dub that Logan plays much (terrible beat), but 'Single' (which is over Wiley's 'Ice Cream Man') is quite good.

- Don't like the new Bruza tune 'So Real' much. Slow and soft doesn't really suit Bruza, he sounds better shouting over uptempo stuff. A few good lines, as usual, though. 'I know you're fake like the breasts on Jordan" - Nice.

- Nice militant remix of 'When I'm Ere'. Big bars.

- The Rossi B remix of 'In Da Place' by Stormin and Nasty Jack is really really good. Weird sort of 60's Tropicalia/James Bond vibe, but nailed really well, way better than 'Remember Me'. Both of them sound a lot better here than they did on (most of) Stormin's mixtape. A nice surprise.

- Can't stand Black Ops 'Fresh'. Their mc's are really awful as well.

- SLK 'Chrome Often' is ridiculous. Awesome production, with weird winding Middle Eastern-ish melody and little orchestral stabs and militant claps. It would be better if it was just Flirta D, because he is awesomely awesome, as they say, and the other mc's are a bit meh.

- New Roll Deep affiliated (I think) singer Alex Mills over a Danny Weed 'production' (ie stick a buzzy bass riff in occassionally) that samples grabs whole-sale an old Whitesnake tune. Dangerously Von Dutch, isn't it?

- The Statik tune 'I Just Wanna Fuck You' is pretty decent, quite funny, mainly notable for an awesomely silly Jammer verse. I used to think Jammer was an absolutely terrible mc, but I was wrong wrong wrong. He is way funnier and more charismatic than like zillions of other people. At the Run the Road show at Rothko he was the main dude responsible for what atmosphere there was. He's also getting a lot better in the conventional sense of mc'ing as well as time goes by. I dunno if I could deal with a whole album of his stuff, but as far as popping up to drop a verse on random tunes, he's absolutely killing it at the moment.

- Interview with Essentials and little mini-set. Lots of shouting. Lots of projects coming up soon, which sounds good, including a Jendor mixtape, which should be fun. I like his weird vroom noise. Anyways, the set is quite good. Short, but fun.

- Dogzilla 'Memories'. Lots of autobiographical details. I actually think Dogz could be one of the biggest mc's in grime, because he covers a much wider range of topics than guns-gash-I'm the top brer in the endz, and he's got this whole Cockney everyman schtick that Mike Skinner has rode to success, but fo' real. And he's got Danny Weed and Target doing beats for him, which is always a good thing.

- The new Tinchy Strider and Dirty Danger tune is stupidly good. Apparently forthcoming on Strider's album, it's just pure dopeness. Spy movie soundtrack bizness.

- The Dexplicit remix of the new Carmen Reece tune is musically ridiculous. The production sounds like a metal staircase collapsing, with extra handclap, but her voice has got that 2-steppy vocodery/time-stretch sound that I've always found really annoying. I hated that shit then, and I hate it now.

That's it. Obviously, I'm not going to comment on every tune. Maybe (note maybe) tomorrow, I'll comment on Cameo's last show, although I hate the BBC website's stream system, where you can only skip forward by 5 minute increments. Terrible setup. David Drake has also passed on a music meme to me, maybe I'll have a go at that. Oh, and the Logan Sama RWD mag mixtape just showed up in the mail today, which was nice.