I have to admit that I have a great deal of empathy for the current skwee movement coming out of Finland. Their basic premise, sumarised by Frans Carlqvist in Wire magazine in October, is “I really loved dancehall and R&B, but I didn’t like rap. There was so much good music spoilt by crappy vocalists”. This album is a case in point. The way that the contemporary R&B template is pushed around is phenomenal. The production is wild. Every track could move a dancefloor, while leaving fellow producers with mouths agape. It is oddball future funk of the finest calibre. The main problem, to my ears, is the inclusion of the requisite ‘guest’ performers, in the form of rappers. Their delivery is never a problem, with their rhythmic cadences adding to the energy (would anything less be expected from the likes of Yo Majesty?). What is a problem is the sheer vacuousness of what they have, or don’t have, to say.
A track like ‘Dip Shorty’ is probably the most obvious proof of this. “You dangerous in your little halter top/making all these heartbeats stop/When you shaking all you got/damn/scandalous/you know you hot/tryin’ to pull a brother with an AmEx card/got one but I don’t spend/depends/on how well you been/damn/aha/that’s how I keeps it/you’re in my ear talking nasty shit like Peaches/but I got the cream if you let me see what’s in them jeans.” I understand that party music is escapist and hedonistic, but that kind of garbage just belittles everyone on all sides of sexual politics. It is the worst case on the album, but is fairly indicative of a collection of lyricists with nothing of worth to say of any more consequence than how good the track sounds that they happen to be spraying all over or some shade of lowest common denominator sexual bravado. Chuck D this certainly ain’t.
Which is a great shame. The production, as mentioned, is brilliant. Stuttering rhythms, as tough as nails, buzzing synth stabs, huge elastic bass riffs – it’s all continually and unrelentingly propulsive. Tempos are mixed up from upbeat electro to comatose R&B, but always with a swaggering groove. None of the tracks stand out for that reason. Rather, it’s one groove after another of irresistible movement. And it’s not as if the music couldn’t stand up on its own. It’s not in need of lyricists to cover over a lack of ideas or progression in each track. Odd little sounds are deployed regularly, breakdowns are thrown at will, timbres bent, twisted and spat out at high speed. If you block out the inane busy chatter, you can hear that the music can easily hold its own.
No doubt the creators are going to claim irony, and that listeners like me have no sense of humour. But irony only works when it’s subverting the context in which it is deployed. Merely regurgitating garbage does not make one a satirist. If only CLP had the confidence to let their music do its own work – that would be an album I would truly love.
Adrian Elmer
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