PLAYLIST
SELECTIONS: DOMINIC VALVONA, MATT OLIVER AND AYFER SIMMS
The second quarterly revue of 2017 gathers together a faithful purview of the last three months of reviews and articles on the Monolith Cocktail. Myself, Matt Oliver and Ayfer Simms have chosen a mere smattering of our favourite music from that period; featuring both tunes from albums/singles/EPs/collections we’ve reviewed or featured on the site and some we just never had the time to include.
Our customary eclectic playlist features synthesized peregrinations and quirky electronica from Ippu Mitsui, AXL OTL and Swamp Sounds; forlorn desert blues and experimental polygenesis traverses and bombast from Ifriqiya Electrique, King Ayisoba, Tanzania Albinism Collective and Songhoy Blues; a smattering of choice cuts from Matt Oliver’s Rapture & Verse hip-hop review, including Raekwon, Prozack Turner, Brother Ali and Shabazz Palaces; plus pop makossa vibes from Cameroon, aria electric guitar cosmological paeans from Anna Coogan, heavy doom psychedelia from the Black Angels and much, much more. In all: A sense of anxiety. A sense of angst. A sense of unease. And a sense of wonder.
Tracks:
Ippu Mitsui ‘Bug’s Wings’ (review)
AXL OTL ‘Ondes Beta’
Swamp Sounds ‘Skull Disco’ (review)
In Flagranti ‘Sidewalk Salsa’
Flamingods ‘Mixed Blessings’
King Ayisoba (ft. Wanlov da Kubolor & Big Gad) ‘Africa Needs Africa’ (review)
Ifriqiyya Electrique ‘Arrah arrah abbaina-Bahari-Tenouiba’ (review)
Tanzania Albinism Collective ‘Tanzania Is Our Country, Too’ (review)
Vieux Farka Toure ‘Bonheur’ (review)
Tanzania Albinism Collective ‘Mistreated’
Colin Stetson ‘Spindrift’
Uncle Pops & The Dumbloods ‘Harry Smith’s Paper Planes’ (review)
Raekwon ‘Crown Of Thorns’
BocaWoody (ft, Blu Rum 13) ‘At It Again’ (review)
The Last Skeptik (ft. Scrufizzer, Mikill Pane, Dream Mclean, Al The Native) ‘Drumroll Please’ (review)
DJ Format & Abdominal ‘Still Hungry’ (review)
Prozack Turner ‘Obsession’ (review)
Danger Mouse & Run The Jewels ‘Chase Me’ (review)
Ramson Badbonez & DJ Fingerfood ‘Hypnodic’ (review)
Jehst (ft. Eric Biddines & Strange U) (review)
Brother Ali ‘Own Light (What Hearts Are For)’ (review)
Shabazz Palaces (ft. Thaddillac) ‘Shine A Light’ (review)
El Michels Affair (ft. Lee Fields & The Shacks) ‘Tearz’ (review)
Alex Stolze ‘Don’t Try To Be’ (review)
Earlham Mystics ‘Truth’
Andrew Wasylyk ‘Under High Blue Skies’ (review)
Bill Loko ‘Nen Lambo’ (review)
Vincent Ahehehinnou ‘Best Woman’
Songhoy Blues ‘Bamako’
The Black Angels ‘Hunt Me Down’ (review)
Faust ‘Lights Flicker’ (review)
Oiseaux-Tempete ‘Baalshamin’
Anna Coogan ‘The Lonely Cry Of Space And Time’ (review)
Sergio Beercock ‘Jester’ (review)
Sparks ‘What The Hell Is It This Time?’
Der Plan ‘Lass die Katze stehn’ (review)
Arcade Fire ‘Creature Comfort’
Lucy Leave ‘Talk Danish To Me’
Vassals ‘Sea Spells’ (review)
Mount Song ‘Nothing’ (review)
Carlo Mazzoli ‘Avalanche Blues’ (review)
Happyness ‘Tunnel Vision On Your Part’ (review)
LP REVIEW
WORDS: MATT OLIVER
Ramson Badbonez & DJ Fingerfood ‘Hypnodic’
High Focus Records, 16th June 2017
High Focus’ one-time garbage pail kid found hanging on Task Force’s ‘Music from the Corner’ – “without a shadow of a doubt, the most popular grouch, bad attitude and foul moods” – is swinging a fob watch and infusing the room with brattish British aromas. Ramson Badbonez, a name that has never endorsed figures and findings of less than 100% (just make sure you put the M in the right place), has long ridden with a posse of blue touch paper lighters: a snapshot of RB on DJ Jazz T’s ‘Pick & Mix Experience’ from last year is ideal research into the practices of Hypnodic. With boom bap from DJ Fingerfood the be all and end all, putting heads on chopping blocks en route to bagging a thirteen-course bellyful, Hypnodic is not a mind trick that’ll leave you feeling sleepy.
Breaking the mad scientist mould, a white-collar criminal in a white coat monogrammed with a Jolly Roger, there’s a collective bounce that’ll pull you out the front row before dispatching you back into the masses by dismissive means. Showing his clipboard doodles and lyrical long division on ‘Solitude’, a rare instance of Fingerfood quelling the action with a methodical, even theatrical back-n-forth, Badbonez mixes third eye alchemy, throwing voodoo pins like he’s at the oche, with squalid life from the itchy side. ‘Stir Fried’, living in squatter’s paradise/student digs hell, is delivered with very British pride/disdain, an overlap of fantasy-reality rearranged by the scruff of the neck.
It’s symptomatic of RB’s style that might not directly call out opposition, but will leave them needing some pretty special comebacks to stay in his orbit. Speaking up for producer-emcee dynamic as well, if Badbonez doesn’t topple you, Fingerfood will clean you up and out before the standing count. With rhymes delivered with an emphatic, nib-breaking full stop at the end of every bar (‘Verses Eye Spit’), a 35 minutes long running time means angles are worked sharp and precise – and loud, “condition(ing) my tongue like the one-inch punch”.
Around some Fingerfood tapas served as cohesive intervals rather than self-fulfilling detritus, Badbonez busts mics, with MAB vouching for ownership of “more bars than Ibiza, Ayia Napa or Falaraki”…and then gets the hell out of there (‘Anti Convo’) as if there’s a bounty counting down on his head. The express show-n-prove ‘Komodo Saliva’ in particular, loads up and spews out seat of the pants thrills. The short fuse gives him something of an enigmatic edge some of his label mates don’t carry, even if it’s hardly a persona that exudes secrecy.
When the smoke clears, you’re okay with the fact that Badbonez and Fingerfood could have gone further as bull in a china shop for another half dozen or so tracks. The compact effectiveness of jugular-lusting impact cannot be overstated, and in the High Focus pecking order, Hypnodic is the caffeine boost boasting the exact levels of raw and uncut hip-hop you require. Very necessary therapy.
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