Rimshots Fired? I’ll say. It’s the music your parents warned you about – you know – the ‘repetitive beats’ sort there used to be a moral panic about back in the day but made with sampled funk breaks. Enter The Preacher – a funk producer who sneers at bpms below 130. A man who takes what Nile Rodgers said about not building to the hook but starting with the hook and switches it up. Yup, he’s not starting with the hook, he’s starting with the break. Step down to a verse at some point? Or up to a hook? Fuck off! This one’s all break. Yes, yes, there is sometimes bass and/ or horns, and/or guitar but they’re just an afterthought. A technicality. Mere guilding of the break-lily-thingy. So no vocals? Well, yeah actually, case in point – they appear about 25 seconds from the end. Wtf just happened? And why am I so sweaty? Holy Christ and here’s Smilin Billy Sweet a.k.a. the B-side. Sounds like some crazy Gospel preacher from back in the day (and might well be given that The Preacher is in reality Mr Greg ‘I do gospel funk round here’ Belson) and this one’s even more insane. What you imagine Spiral Tribe might’ve made had existed in the late 1960s.
(Out now on Echo Chamber Recordings)
