A Melburnian now spending most of his time in Berlin, who apparently works in a solar-powered studio fashioned from a converted shipping container, Monkey Marc (real name Marc Peckham) is probably best known to most people as the main producer behind the socially conscious dub/hip-hop collective Combat Wombat. Three years on from his impressive debut solo album As The Market Crashed, this latest 12†EP on Jahtari Monkey Marc vs The Planet Smashers sees Peckham offering up six new tracks that smoothly blend chunky hiphop rhythms with deep, dubby bass atmospheres.
In this case the focus falls upon predominantly instrumental tracks, with ‘303 Dub’ grafting a rigid backbone of clattering boom-bap snares onto an eerie oceanic swirl of dubbed-out ragga guitars and waspy analogue synths, before ‘Change Is Gonna Come’ sees a dubbed out wash of horns and echoing soul vocals intoning the title phrase trailing over a relentless MPC drum groove that calls to mind some meeting point between Prince Paul and the Mad Professor. Elsewhere, ‘Who Goes There Dub’ offers up a squelching space-dub retake on the recent Roots Manuva track that places the emphasis on flickering snare interplay and ricocheting laser-like FX, before ‘Qwest Dub’ takes things off into the sunset as jagged guitar echoes roll against Morricone-esque harmonica tones and a chunky rolling drum break. One comparison that comes to mind here is some of the Vienna-based G-Stone label’s forays into smoked-out dub/hip-hop, with the sharp focus snap of the beats nicely counterpointing the more vaporous layers.
Chris Downton
