BorderCrossing Ominous LP
Even just the press release sounds interesting on this one - three producers hailing from Renegade Soundwave, the son of a rock sessionist and the son of a jazz buff combine to create a genre-crossing (hence the name?) hiphop-oriented LP released on the label created by a bloke from Madness!
It's producer lead so there's guests-a-plenty but it's an impressive rollcall - YNR's Jehst & Usmaan on individual tracks, Ricky Rankin (last seen round Mr Manuvas way) on four, ex 11:59 MC Rockwell making a welcome return and bringing an oldskool vibe, female vocalist Alex Watson on two and hitherto unknown MCs Sincere, Gordon G and Gian Carlo Morocco.
It's a hiphop thing but drifting occasionally into material reminiscent of Grand Central style soulful tracks, Cafe Del Mar ambient balearic anthems or Massive Attack's reggae fuelled collaborations with Horace Andy. Production is tight, as you'd expect from a trio all putting their contributions in, but strangely and thankfully there's no muddle of sounds, it's all very simplistic letting the individual samples used and sharp beats breathe easily and find their own space amongst the vocalists.
MC of the moment Jehst appears on second single 'The Alias' and does exactly what you'd expect with some good flow and wordplay over a crisp headnodding beat, Rockwell is a pleasant surprise with his laidback hybrid American/English twang making first single 'Original Heads' sound like The Brotherhood meets those Y.Z tracks off the first Aim LP. The instrumental cuts, whilst keeping to the same high production standards as the other tracks, are barely more layered or deviating so in some cases feel they're lacking a vocal, indeed in 'Searching for Mr Manuva's case this was the intention as Rodney Smith is going to lace this one with some vocals in a future release.
Predominantly confined to the chillout rooms of clubs, or for those beer and spliff nights in it does drift into tracks that could move an openminded dancefloor, notably dancehallish 'The Return' complete with tennisball induced sample(!) and the Usmaan and Jehst tracks can easily be slotted into any homegrown hiphop set, but would also feel comfortable in the aforementioned chillout room.
Overall this is a very impressive debut release by Border Crossing, fitting into a niche of their own between similarly producer based LPs by Rae & Christian (less introverted soulfuljazzthings) and The Nextmen (less floor-oriented bangers)....hiphop with 'all back to mine' club crossover potential, maybe even opening a few doors for the hiphop artists it encompasses. Expect to hear it coming out of Ibiza Cafe's soundsystems next summer as the sun goes down....and thats not a diss!
- Spoon | profile
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