Melbourne-based techno producer Christopher Coe (aka Digital Primate) occupies something of an interesting position in that like other contemporaries such as Voiteck and Steve Law/Zen Paradox, he’s arguably better known overseas than in his home country. While he’s certainly been a key player amongst the Australian techno scene over the past decade with his influential Melbourne club night Centriphugal playing a instrumental role in popularising the sound locally, some of his most spectacular receptions have come from crowds at prestigious venues such as Tresor, Tokyo’ Womb and NYC’ Bed – indeed he continues to tour Europe as a DJ on an annual basis. Like fellow Melbournian Steve Law, he’s also an artist who divides his explorations between the dancefloor and more experimental pursuits, as ongoing collaborations with maverick figures such as Stelarc attest to.
This second Digital Primate album Siege Mentality is coloured with the same political themes covered on his Iraq war-critiquing 2003 Bunker Buster EP and shows an increased dubby / electro-bhangra presence rising to the forefront of Coe’s productions that calls to mind M.I.A.’s Arular album as well as the unmistakable imprints of dubstep and grime – it’s also easily Coe’s most collab-heavy record to date. In addition to legendary dub figure The Mad Professor (who mixed and contributed additional production to almost half of this album), the 18 tracks gathered here feature an assortment of vocal talent drawn from both Australia and overseas, the Mad Professor’s son Kar’Melody (a formidable UK MC in his own right) rubbing shoulders with local artists Queen Khadeeja and Macromantics.
Opening track “On Da Radio’ fuses clipped dubstep-esque rhythms with delayed-out keyboards and bottomless bass courtesy of The Mad Professor while Melodic’s lazy ragga-soul croon fuses effortlessly with Queen Khadeeja and Demilition B-Girl’s rapid-fire vocals, resulting in a smooth listen that’s not a million miles removed from the sort of broken garage-informed textures explored on G-Stone’ recent “Dub Club 2′ comp. “No Soldier’ meanwhile shows the social commentary present throughout much of this album rising to the forefront early on, Queen Khadeeja’ lyrical flow skewering the sorts of vapid gangster male archetype perpetuated by the likes of Beyonce; instead of the “soldier boyfriend’ invoked by the former, she’s looking for a real man who’ll “think past the end of the month.” The CC Martini-fronted “My Bush Would Make A Better President’s stands out as the obvious first choice for the saucy radio single, the teasing female vocal rolling against buzzing electro synth bursts and clattering electro-bhangra beats in a fusion that particularly makes the M.I.A. comparisons mentioned earlier apparent, while the Coe-voiced “Now Is The Time To Be Openly Guarded’ represents the only slight miss-step here, its repetitive robo-vocal becoming grating over its full running length.
“I Deserve’ and “Career A Move Up’ meanwhile show Coe setting the controls for swaggering digi-dancehall with spectacular results reminiscent of both Stereotyp and Switch broken rhythmic explorations, before “Indyvidual’ shows Macromantic contributing an inspired vocal appearance against clanking bhangra-dancehall beats and just a hint of shimmering 303 acid. If you enjoyed Coe’ preceding Bunker Buster EP, you’ll find that this album follows on nicely from both its lyrical and musical themes; while much of Siege Mentality is distinctly oriented towards radio accessibility, that certainly hasn’t concurrently resulted in any blunting of Coe’s trademark edge, as the 18 tracks here attest to.
Chris Downton
