It has been a long time since such a quirky record from Australia has passed across my desk. Unkle Ho is a producer based in the inner Sydney suburb of Enmore, a multicultural area of students, cheap Indian taxi-driver feeding holes, Greek restaurants, Turkish barbers and southeast Asian cuisine – he is also a member of local indie hip hop supergroup The Herd. Roads To Roma is an adventure in audio tourism, taking liberally from near East - Bollywood, rai and the like; Eastern European gypsy musics, and running with heavily dancehall and Timbaland-influenced beats (on Thriller Run you almost expect Ludacris and Missy Elliott to start rhyming). It sounds like there’s even a cheeky sample of Edith Piaf snuck in there. Now this could easily have degenerated into a Womad-style samplefest but except for the over the top operatics of Rock The damn Kremlin featuring Apsci, the album retains a subtle edginess even if there still remains a niggling doubt that there is a ‘meaning’ in those vocal sample choices other than their timbre. Like Enmore, an essential and quirky place to visit.
Sebastian Chan
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