Catching The Waves

Lingers On The Palate

DJ Side is a Czech DJ who makes dubstep, grime and hip-hop. "All well and good, and we're very happy for him," I hear you say, "but what about those of CTW's enormous readership who don't want to nod their heads and consort with people of the opposite sex?" Fear not, O basement dwellers. With a surreptitious wink, DJ Side has sneaked an ambient hip-hop EP into CTW's coat pocket. You heard me: ambient hip-hop. Bittersweet Love is a five-track slice of hypnotic audio bliss, released on parole by those unstable people at Surreal Madrid netlabel.

Wikipedia defines dubstep as "distinguished by its dark mood, sparse rhythms, and emphasis on bass," which goes a long way to explain the soundscape you'll hear in Bittersweet Love. What's especially intriguing is the use of ambient sounds in hip-hop rhythms, though the glitches are set at such slow tempi that it's more trip-hop than hip-hop. Standing on the Olympic podium: 1. Lo-fi beats over lengthy delays and reverberations. 2. Deep bass drones. 3. Glitches.

The EP kicks off with Amb Part 2, wherein we discover an electric piano, a snare drum made of stretched white noise (sort of), and a distressed seagull strapped to a dub delay. Hey, it's how I roll. [/Americanese slang]

Clicks is just that, the sound of a dusty record with lots of panned clicks 'n' cuts. It sounds like a fireplace getting its groove on while an ominous, pulsing bass runs around the house and tries to find a way in. It's difficult to make such sparse elements engrossing, but don't worry - a Czech DJ is, er, in the house. Heh.

If the Cold War ever returns to Europe, D33P should be the soundtrack for its newly employed spies as they don mackintoshes, smoke far too many high-tar cigarettes and rendezvous in bombed-out buildings. Bell-like tones haunt the crackly, delayed clicks that run in and out of a lo-fi drum break. The bass sounds as though DJ Side parked a diesel engine in the corner of his studio, threw a thick tarpaulin over it and left it to run while he got on with making music. The track takes its time and thus gets under your skin. It broods. It's deep ind33d.

In Klear you'll hear giant filter sweeps, background thumps and a low, pulsing bass. It's rather like listening to distant warfare while the United Nations deploy a blue-helmeted click 'n' cut groove to keep things almost civilised. Like the rest of Bittersweet Love, it won't grab you on the first listen, but it's detail and rhythmical qualities might eventually win you over; it did me.

Metatron provides an optimistic-ish ending to our aural journey. A plain clap-and-kick beat overlays background noises and snatches of conversation before a muted guitar and lo-fi strings leaven the mix.

I'm not sure if there's much point listening to this fascinating EP on your/my standard crappy PC speakers because much of the intricate detail will be lost. It's definitely headphones territory; either that or play it late at night on a decent sound system. Your neighbours will love you. Trust me.

Perhaps someone will tell me where the album cover image comes from. Donning my deerstalker hat, I've deduced that it's from an Asian gangster film, and furthermore, my magnifying glass tells me that it might include the odd bout of fisticuffs or at least a sharply worded letter deploring misbehaviour in general.

DJ Side - Bittersweet Love EP (link to individual MP3s)

Surreal Madrid netlabel

DJ Side's website

DJ Side's MySpace

Two Wheels Good

The free toy in today's CTW box of cereal is an EP by a ramshackle rock band who love to let rip on the road and in the studio. All the songs here have a loose and improvisational feel about them, as though the band members grabbed whatever happened to be lying around in the studio and barged into a song whenever the feeling took them. They feel a bit like the '60s Rolling Stones but with free added electronica. AdcBicycle - I'll repeat that again for the hard of reading - adcBicycle are a wild-eyed bunch of rebels who by rights should be tearing up the dusty backroads of America or dashing through rain-drenched Budapest squares in search of the next after-gig party.

Except they're not. AdcBicycle is actually one person from Canada who is unfeasibly talented and has released a free eponymous five-track EP on Kikapu netlabel in the hope it will encourage you lot out there to pay to hear the other songs from his album. If life was fair, he'd be pushing a wheelbarrow of gold nuggets to the nearest bank. The five tracks are all of a piece and lead directly into one another, so they are meant to be heard in order. Somehow the electronica elements are made to sound organic; they blend in seamlessly with the acoustic instruments.

The first track, intro, begins with electronic warbling before treating the listener to a blend of brass, over-driven organ, acoustic guitar and finishing with, erm, what sounds like the manic humming of a deformed manservant on his way to help in his master's laboratory.

About a minute into poor economic policies you'll find yourself listening to demented pseudo-Native American chanting backing a Nintendo-ish chiptune, and thinking, "Well, this is new. And tuneful. And rather superb. And free." The cackling laughter that follows (this is not your ordinary EP) precedes a transformation into an epic rock sound that implodes into a kazoo-like ending.

It's not easy to describe music, you know.

The third track is called Facing the wall, staring beyond, a line from Samuel Beckett's A Piece of Monologue, an extract of which features in this gloomy piece. Melancholy guitars and organs get deeper and darker as the lyric gets glummer and gloomier. It's a meditative piece that is strangely uplifting. In the name of god ponders religious violence and violence in general accompanied by burbling electronica and slide guitar. It's an easier listen than you might think.

There's a story behind We're taking over the world Richard [sic]. AdcBicycle is an Ottawa resident, and so is Richard Warman, a human-rights lawyer. Someone naughty dialled the wrong number and left this unforgettable message on the wrong answer-phone. I give you one of the best audio extracts ever:

"This is a message, um, to Richard Warman from one of David Icke's nutty followers. We're taking over the world, Richard, we're taking over. And there's fuck all you can do about it. We are right."

A brief chronology of David Icke: professional goalkeeper, TV sports presenter, Green Party politician, ...scourge of reptilian humanoids. Look him up and weep.

AdcBicycle's EP is full of extracts from interviews, speeches and films, all artfully mixed with a beguiling blend of electronica and rock/art music, creating a unique and pleasurable listening experience. I hope he sells some albums off the back of it. And I still don't know how one man manages to sound like a shaggy rock band with a hip electronica producer. The netlabel scene is great, isn't it?

adcBicycle - adcBicycle EP (link to zipped album and separate mp3s)

Complete album available from Noisefactory Records.

Go to the adcBicycle Home Page to find out more, and to read the good news that there's a remix of the album due soon.