by Jonny Pelham
Daily Lobo
British DJ Mark One is helping remove the rave-like qualities in garage music, a form of English breakbeats.
The former drum 'n' bass DJ is one of the scene's most skilled producers. His new album, One Way, combines brooding Wu-Tang strings and fast Jamaican-influenced vocals to create a menacing, smoked-out attitude.
Every electronic movement seems to spawn an equally paranoid subgenre.
The ecstatic polyrhythms of jungle gave way to the skittering sledgehammer beats of drum 'n' bass. The funky preachings of De La Soul led to the dark and threatening sound of DMX.
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Now UK garage has grown disillusioned. A distinctly British underground music movement, which has only just really started catching on - mainly thanks to Dizzee Rascal - is the new sound of inner-city London, with tracks typically peppered with car alarms, gunshots, police sirens and Nokia ring tones. This warped offspring of garage is known as grime, sublow or dubstep.
The instrumentals on One Way have a similar effect as dub reggae, locking the listener into a slow, swaggering groove.
"Bang Bang Boy" is hard as nails, packed with gun samples that keep triggering and reloading.
This nonstop overkill of gunshots underlined with its wobbly dred bass closes around the listener.
"Call Back" is a truly filthy cut, made up of a collage of answering-machine messages, growls and a beat that sounds like an angry kid in a hoodie battering a car with an iron pole.
But the three tracks with MCs from the mighty Virus Syndicate crew are more energetic than the gloomy instrumentals. The album's opening track, "Stand Up," features JSD, who lends the track a jump-up quality.
"Ready for It" incorporates a sickening retching sound while MC Goldfinger warns the listener to get ready for the sickness. The illness theme continues with Nika D's marginally less impressive flows in "Contagious Rhymin'."
Grime straddles dance and hip-hop, street culture and experimentalism. Mark One has produced a violent and important edition to the Playstation generation's soundtrack.
One Way
Grade: B+
