statik remixes bloc party

B

boomnoise

♫
the lady sovereign remix of the ordinary boys is, not unsurprisingly, terrible.

i'm all for crossover but not making this statik remix available on the remix lp kinda defeats the point and does very little to promote grime to the indie masses.

surely that was the kind of platform it needed. something from where bloc party fans can explore the remixers work and look to grime and learn that grime isn't exactly roll deep's avenue which they've heard jo wiley (sic) playing alongside bloc party's war child mk 2.0 contribution.
 
G

gumdrops

Well-known member
looks like statik really wants to work in indie as hes apparently produced the new 'all star' remake of the clash's janie jones (with one of the guys from babyshambles). sounds pretty good actually. didnt think he would be that adept at producing a live band but he seems alright. the videos on prancehalls blog. theres meant to be a remx with JME as well.
 
Last edited:
S

squibl

Member
damit. That bloody bloc party remix was banging. It never got a full release on any format did it, except that waste grindie mixtape.
 
swears

swears

preppy-kei
Isn't grime better crossing over with pop and r'n'b influences? Like that track "Gully" Crazy Titch did with Keisha from Sugababes.
 
G

gek-opel

entered apprentice
The thing is there IS potential in an indie-grime crossover, but not in the way Statik has at times attempted to carry it out. I mean, the idea of grime rapping over guitars from such non-entities as the sodding babyshambles is just a marketing ploy really. I could conceive of some smarter collaborations, and yes as someone said ages ago upthread Bloc Party are the most appropriate of all the UK mainstream NME-approved indie people that Statik has been repping (cos at their best they are a very rhythmically focused act). But really you'd need people who were less on the pub rock side of things to make this work. I have heard rumour that Boy Better Know are collaborating with Gang Gang Dance, now that I would like to hear.
 
S

shudder

Well-known member
gek-opel said:
I have heard rumour that Boy Better Know are collaborating with Gang Gang Dance, now that I would like to hear.
Click to expand...

what??? is this credible? I'm ALL OVER that. When they played here a couple months ago, they had their friend DJing some wicked (dancehall) reggae before and after, and it totally recontextualized their beat sensibilities throughout the show for me. I could almost hear some grimey-ness is what before I had heard mainly as wacked-out "arab"influenced rock stuff.
 
G

gek-opel

entered apprentice
Yeah, I saw GGD with BBK supporting, and the new GGD stuff has some pretty grime/dubstep bass weight action going on. Obviously (and with reference to the Hadouken stuff) the kind of appropriation which occurs with an art rock group like GGD is not entirely unproblematic, but I suspect the results will be far more intriguing (and preserve the more interesting aspects of grime- ie the faltering rhythms and bright plastic electronic production) than a lame attempt (born of the marketing man's eye for lining up demographic opportunities) to mash up pub-indie and grime...
 
Last edited:
M

mms

sometimes
gek-opel said:
Yeah, I saw GGD with BBK supporting, and the new GGD stuff has some pretty grime/dubstep bass weight action going on. Obviously (and with reference to the Hadouken stuff) the kind of appropriation which occurs with an art rock group like GGD is not entirely unproblematic, but I suspect the results will be far more intriguing (and preserve the more interesting aspects of grime- ie the faltering rhythms and bright plastic electronic production) than a lame attempt (born of the marketing man's eye for lining up demographic opportunities) to mash up pub-indie and grime...
Click to expand...

ggdance are absolutley brilliant - god's money was fantastic.
 
T

tate

Brown Sugar
gek-opel said:
Yeah, I saw GGD with BBK supporting, and the new GGD stuff has some pretty grime/dubstep bass weight action going on. Obviously (and with reference to the Hadouken stuff) the kind of appropriation which occurs with an art rock group like GGD is not entirely unproblematic, but I suspect the results will be far more intriguing (and preserve the more interesting aspects of grime- ie the faltering rhythms and bright plastic electronic production) than a lame attempt (born of the marketing man's eye for lining up demographic opportunities) to mash up pub-indie and grime...
Click to expand...
I saw Gang Gang Dance a few weeks ago in Brooklyn as well, and I wouldn't say that that there was a great deal of grime or dubstep "bass weight" at work, certainly not at the level that I would call "appropriation" much less "problematic appropriation." Yeah, sure, the absence of a bass player and Brian's interest in cheap technology (including massive bass at times, yes) may lend a few bassy bits and grimey sounds to it, sure, but, in proportion to the other compositional and sonic ideas on display, I'd say that grime/dubstep ranks pretty low - if anything they sound a lot more like trashy-glossy Balkan or Central Asian pop than East London in my humble opinion. Brian also loves that yamaha dd 50, the cheapo drum pad thing, which he plays a lot, and often in tandem with synths, but I'd say that overwhelmingly Gang Gang Dance are pursuing their own sound, which doesn't really sound like anyone else. They certainly don't sound like art rock dudes appropriating grime, not yet anyway (and they are now hella more organized and composed than what's on god's money, a record i like very much incidentally). lizzie's vocals for another thing, how she uses a delay pedal and repeatedly turns off the send volume so you only get waves of echo, very much her own sound and not grimey at all. Maybe your show was different, obv the presence of Tinchy guesting will be fun to hear, in any case I guess the record in a month will tell the story. I could be wrong, maybe they are grime appropriators.
 
G

gumdrops

Well-known member
GGD sound interesting. this riddim x tune is sort of IDMish though, not so much grime although some of the bass sounds are kinda like early grime/gabba-ish. the gods money track has some dubstep influence. dont know what their album is like but the myspace songs arent what i imagined them being like at all.
 
T

Tactics

BBP!
also what the hell is Gabba?

gumdrops said:
GGD sound interesting. this riddim x tune is sort of IDMish though, not so much grime although some of the bass sounds are kinda like early grime/gabba-ish. the gods money track has some dubstep influence. dont know what their album is like but the myspace songs arent what i imagined them being like at all.
Click to expand...

I've been meaning to ask ever since I joined this place lol...
 
G

gek-opel

entered apprentice
tate said:
I saw Gang Gang Dance a few weeks ago in Brooklyn as well, and I wouldn't say that that there was a great deal of grime or dubstep "bass weight" at work, certainly not at the level that I would call "appropriation" much less "problematic appropriation." Yeah, sure, the absence of a bass player and Brian's interest in cheap technology (including massive bass at times, yes) may lend a few bassy bits and grimey sounds to it, sure, but, in proportion to the other compositional and sonic ideas on display, I'd say that grime/dubstep ranks pretty low - if anything they sound a lot more like trashy-glossy Balkan or Central Asian pop than East London in my humble opinion. Brian also loves that yamaha dd 50, the cheapo drum pad thing, which he plays a lot, and often in tandem with synths, but I'd say that overwhelmingly Gang Gang Dance are pursuing their own sound, which doesn't really sound like anyone else. They certainly don't sound like art rock dudes appropriating grime, not yet anyway (and they are now hella more organized and composed than what's on god's money, a record i like very much incidentally). lizzie's vocals for another thing, how she uses a delay pedal and repeatedly turns off the send volume so you only get waves of echo, very much her own sound and not grimey at all. Maybe your show was different, obv the presence of Tinchy guesting will be fun to hear, in any case I guess the record in a month will tell the story. I could be wrong, maybe they are grime appropriators.
Click to expand...


Yeah, they are clearly moving away from mucky improv stuff into more synthetic composed songwriting... listening to God's Money the abiding impression is as you say that they are appropriating trashy central Asian pop... but when I saw them last year there was a definite UK post Garage (ie- grime and dubstep) feel to the music- obviously to a lot of people grime is synonymous with the particular flows of the MCs, and in this regard there was zero influence on their new music, but in the rhythms, and instrumental textures there were definite references, and not merely in a kinda backwards sino-grime manner either... The overriding effect is of them pursuing their own inimitable sound to be sure, but the incorporation of subtle (ie- we sure ain't talking about Hadouken here...) global urban influences (its a kind of pan-global mass-appropriation they deal in, all filtered through a song-based art-rock filter) is their prime methodology... the fact that the end result doesn't feel either pathetically derivative or denuded of the force provided by the cultural contexts of their numerous source materials is the greatest strength (perhaps afforded by the lack of Sun City Girls-esque pranksterism, combined with a sense of unification offered in bright synthetic textures which cuts against any chin stroking authenticity issues-- its gloriously inauthentic, and they play with that element without surrendering to empty po-mo.)

Definitely one of my favourite bands, the new material should be excellent, I imagine...
 
Last edited:
S

shudder

Well-known member
I would love to hear what the band members would say about all this. When they played in Toronto a couple of months ago, I spoke with the singer and (I think) the keyboard player, and they were really friendly and happy to talk about their music. I wish I had known about the BBK collabo back then. Did someone say their new album is coming out soon?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top