Greed Mistake #1 (demo) Greed, the Frank Rappa production team’s first release is a very listenable and in places thrilling listen. It opens up with soul diva Noor singing over a nice guitar and piano combo over some quiet harsh clipped beats. The atmosphere is set for something good to happen. It then switches to the second best song on the release, the Russian-sounding instrumental song, “Gandolph”. Based about an Eastern European folk guitar and some operatic Russian singing, this instrumental has probably the best drum production on the EP. It moves along nicely and aptly soundtracks walking through maddeningly busy London streets on a Saturday afternoon. Who knows… in years to come, this song could end up fronting an ad campaign for the new Fiat Punto or something. It’s a good song and shows off some imaginative production. “Beat It” and “230 Volts” boast the talents of US-raised MC Intellect. He has some good flows but lacks the expressions needed for a truly exceptional MC. Trutec does well on “Beat It”, a short song built on a jazzy piano riff. “230 Volts” is a more brooding piece, telling a story about an easily influenced boy thinking he’s a gangster thug. It’s a cliched concept now but Intellect handles it well, using powerful imagery and interesting rhymes to draw a depressing picture of a boy who really needs to differentiate between lyrics and real life. “Sandy” is built around a sung vocal sample. The music ranges from brass stabs to jazzy piano. It works okay as an instrumental to show off the producer’s abilities, however it was probably unnecessary to include and serves to be quite forgettable by the time you get to the end of the CD. “Bubbles” is another Trutec and Intellect collaboration based around a haunting horror film-esque string. The double bass usage in the bassline works well interplaying with the dark string. The rapping over the top is solid but again, not truly exceptional. There are moments when you stop listening to the MCs and more to the music. “Pac-Man” uses a cheesy computer game sample well to loop round and round till those days of Gameboy are revisited in a nostalgic moment. “Tiny Tim” is the best song on the release and Skeptic is probably the best MC on show. A powerful voice and a great hard delivery shows him to be the underused one on the CD. You believe his lyrics and don’t doubt his abilities. Lyrically on point, he uses metaphors and clever rhymes to invoke a hard battle-scarred persona. A voice I definitely want to hear more. The beat is good, using a dark string again over a nice loop that Skeptic complements with his impassioned delivery. Greed’s EP is a good first release and shows a lot of promise for the future. The production is solid and makes good use of haunting strings and jazzy pianos. The drums do use the same pads but the patterns are sequenced well enough for this not to be immediately noticeable. The only thing I felt this CD lacked was more Skeptic and perhaps one less song by Intellect. The skills on display here are promising for homegrown talent and as a first release, extremely self-assured. - Nikesh Shukla © ukhh.com 1999 - 2003