Rating: 
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, this autumn has had a mad crazy release schedule as labels everywhere make up for the fact that they could barely be arsed to release anything in the spring. As a consequence, review turnaround times have been shorter than an old-schooler’s come back. Given that the UK hip-hop underground’s ‘most-likely-to’ (that’ll be the FBs) have new album United Colours Of Beggattron out on Monday that left only one option. That’s right – it’s time for a ‘byron’. You must know the drill…
INTRO
Upbeat intro – topical – bit of Obama – yeah, I’m feeling this…
MOVE HIGHER (Audra Nishita)
Sounds like the slow intro-bit to a mid-nineties Goldie/ Metalheadz track. All the way through. With rapping on. Apparently FBs have been around for ages but haven’t got the recognition they deserve. A fresh topic you’ll agree.
KEEP IT COMIN’ (feat. Jehst, Kyza & Dr Syntax)
This one’s ok – bit of scratchin’ and Kidulthoodie ‘ya brer’s beeyatch gat a rass claat’ rhymes. Plus a lame male vocal rnb hook.
BREAK FREE (feat. Audra & Kai Nishita)
The third track with a positive mental attitude title, yet another rnb hook and a kick drum I can barely hear. I went to switch the kettle on during this one.
DON’T DHOOW IT (Feat. King Knut)
Sounds like a Cool Kids beat but Foreign Beggars rapping – first one that makes my ears perk up. Mainly because it reminded me of Cool Kids.
HEREFORD HOSPITAL (Skit)
The promo cd sleeve tells you this one’s a skit in case it’s playing and you’re deaf. Inexplicably imagines a vaguely Asian sounding hospital radio DJ announcing a performance by Foreign Beggars. I’ve had funnier colds.
SEVEN FIGURE SWAGGER (Feat. Dubbledge, Badness & Rednaz)
A chorus that won’t leave your head all day, this is P.R.O.P.E.R.
CONTACT (feat. Noisia)
…as is this. Deserves to be as big as Root’s Witness. Huge beat by Dutch dnb heads Noisia. Some twat on a site called monkeyboxing only gave the single 3.5 out of 5.
SHAKE IT (feat. Noisia)
The one where the boys get a bit ‘naughty’. Contains cerebral rhymes like, “Love to take you out on a date if I could/ Maybe let me give you a taste of my wood.” On reflection, makes me think of filthy bumping and grinding so not that bad.
GET A BIT MORE
The synth-keyboards one.
CORRIDORS (Skit)
This one’s a skit too. Well – more of a 30 second beat really.
ASYLUM BOUND (feat. Ben Sharpa)
Starts with a voice like that Asian Fonejacker character who works for an ‘internet service providings’ call centre. But set in an asylum. About going mad or something. Probably sounds better if you’ve been at the green.
BIG N’BLACK (Phat Kat)
Starts off with a Chicago sample making you think it’s about to turn into a M.O.P. style banger. Then goes a bit tinny – probably so it sounds good on the kids’ mobile phone speakers. Not the best beat for Phat Kat’s 50 second phoned-in rhyme – he sounded much better on DJ Design’s last LP…
PROVE IT (Guilty Simpson)
…as did Guilty Simpson funnily enough. How’m I supposed to get amped off something that permanently sounds like it’s going to kick off but never does?
SOME ADVICE (Skit)
Scratching at the start wakes you up but it turns out it’s a skit.
NO MORE (Kashmere, Jehst & DJ 2Tall)
Arguably the best lyrics on the LP but sounds like it was made during a mad ketamine binge at the Dented studios. Could have done with being a bit faster and having more bass.
KEEPING THE LINE FAT (feat. Graziella)
Mid-nineties female garage vocal hook, a beat that sounds like late-era disco ramming grime at the lights and FBs rock up about a third of the way through. The sound of arriving at some sort of ‘Grime-fest’ in Michael Knight’s K.I.T. In a good way.
NO HOLDS BARRED (feat. Devlin, Noisia & DJ 2Tall)
Noisia again. Not unlike a digital earthquake.
SAFEDRIAN
Instrumental. Sounds like a last track. Mind you, so do quite a lot on this.
COMMENTS: Props to the FBs for attempting to craft an album that aims to maintain underground credibility while giving the pop charts a sly grope but United Colours of Beggattron basically revolves around a three track centrepiece with satellites of largely decreasing interest either side, despite a slew of heavyweight UK and US guests. As an LP this has the same sense of anti-climax that I got from Roots’ Run Come Save Me where nothing else on the LP approached the magnitude of Witness. Still, good enough singles potential to merk the competition and in any case how many whole albums do you listen to on a regular basis these days anyway? Tasteful cover too.
Rating: 
“Oh Lord won’t you buy me a Mercedes Benz,” Janis Joplin once sang. No need to request divine intervention now though as you can cop Sway’s Mercedes Benz for nowt below – the new single that is – don’t be expecting the keys to his motor.
Man, I’ve been gagging for this to come out since I first heard the band’s debut single Satisfied. They’ve been described as ‘Dusty Springfield backed by The Yardbirds’ and ‘The Rolling Stones fronted by a woman’ though neither of these analogies convey the fact that there are two female lead singers nor the fact that there’s a heavy soul/ funk influence in the band’s syncopated rhythms which neither The Yardbirds or The Stones ever possessed. Me, I’m running with 13th Floor Elevators playing funky soul and fronted by Dusty Springfield and Julie Driscoll. Don’t argue!
Rating: 
Here’s the second in today’s brace of mash-up 12″s and in truth it’s been out a short minute already – as a swift glance at the 
Bath’s Goodgroove label lives up to it’s name once more and shows hip-hop producers the way back to the dancefloor. The recipe is simple, take one old school hip-hop acapella circa 1985, take one old funk loop circa 1967-1975, forgo the tired ‘dusty breaks’-re-creation-of-1992-approach and instead apply muscular 21st century club vibe instead. Retaining the breakbeat (correctly) it also chucks in a few house-production flourishes. Not the shit vocoder-vocals and cheesy electro synths of – well, pretty much anyone in the mainstream (a.k.a. trying to sound like Kanye trying to sound like Daft Punk) but something more primal – along the lines of ‘cut beat out, bring in euphoric swell, raise to crescendo, re-introduce beat to crowd going crazy, girls throwing underwear around. Think I can probably live with that.
Insurgentes, the debut album from Steven Wilson, was released earlier this year on Kscope. The album immediately received a rapturous reception from not just fans and critics but also from fellow artists. Several of these artists have remixed tracks from the album and NSRGNTS RMXS is a collection of some of these remixes. 
More dutty-ness, this time from the dirty south in the shape of the video for recent Foreign Beggars/ Noisia collabo single. And you know what? As I predicted in my own review of this the other week, it’s still improving with every listen. Quite possibly the most convincing bid for homegrown-UK hiphop crossover success since Roots Manuva’s Witness this not only detonates with a shockwave so massive the competition is largely vaporised but also demonstrates that you can keep your credibility’s virginity intact and still have a hit – which this must surely be. The total opposite of Dizzee, Tinchy and Chipmunk who it makes look like a trio of bumfluff-sporting, chancers. Oh. Hang on…
Bomb Tesco? It’s hard to disagree with the sentiment. I don’t know about you, but round my way they want to build a new Tesco superstore despite the fact that there’s already a Sainsbury, an Asda, two Tesco Metros and a Tesco Homeplus within a three mile radius. Apparently they’ll only get the go ahead if ten thousand homes are built (on green belt) so there are enough customers. Consequently, I’d give this props for it’s title alone even if it was the latest piece of diet-Kanye housey-keyboard-crap. Which it isn’t. What you do get is a quirky piece of almost latin-rhythmed folk-hop that’s so organic even homemade soya milk feels guilty next to it. It’s a typically British piece of gently-comedic, surrealist whimsy that imagines how some hippy rapper (no, really) banging out rhythms in the car park gradually compels the store’s entire staff to ‘feel the music’ at the expense of their dead-end vocations. Possibly not quite as satisfying as the alternative tale from my head which envisions some sort of ‘fatwa’ against Tesco’s board of managers culminating in a suicide attack that blows their fucking heads off and follows it up with a second onslaught where members of the public take it in turn to shit down the bleeding stumps of these representatives of rapacious consumerism. Metaphorically, obviously. The chirpy music could stay the same though as it would still essentially be a positive tale.
