While East London Co-Op stars Bugz In the Attic’ breakout “Booty La La’ single brought them a considerably wider audience, for some reason their Back In The Doghouse album of last year failed to crossover as much as many (including their label V2) expected, even though the record was certainly filled with plenty of strong material. Given Bugz’ virtual ubiquity amongst the UK broken-beat and soul scenes, it seems slightly surprising that it’s taken this long for DMC to invite them to compile a Back To Mine – indeed, this latest volume represents the 26th chapter in the series. In this case, all of the members of the eight-strong crew are responsible for the final track selection that appears here, while Thy Lord and Scott 1200 man the decks for the mixing duties themselves – a strategy that calls to mind Hot Chip’ recent similarly group consensus-oriented DJ Kicks instalment. From the very outset, the 19 track, 70 minute long mix easily comes across as considerably more upbeat and extrovert than the majority of the Back To Mine series, eschewing coffee table chill-out vibes in favour of an after hours party vibe that takes in classic hip-hop, electro, disco, funk and soul whilst pretty much completely steering clear of the contemporary broken-beat sounds the collective have built their reputation on.
The furious clattering polyrhythms of Mu’ opening “Let Get Sick’ immediately signal that this isn’ going to be some sink-into-the-sofa style exercise, with the Bugz cutting up and stuttering the beats through a mass of blaring air horns and sampled pirate-radio style call outs. In this case however, the track itself proves to be little more than a particularly frenzied intro beats section for the Liquid Liquid-meets The Slits -esque female-fronted punk-funk of Maximum Joy’ suitably elastic bass-loaded “Stretch’, a trajectory adeptly followed by the clicking 808-fuelled proto-disco house of Frankie Knuckles’ “Only The Strong Will Survive’ and the Studio 54-oriented orchestral grooves of The Fantastic Aleems’ “Hooked On Your Love.’ The late J.Dilla’ “Workinonit’s changes the gears abruptly down into hip-hop with its strangely Devo-esque vocal samples and stinging guitar riffs, offering a segue that melts fluidly into Rammelzee vs. K-Rob’ classic electro piece “Beat Bop’, before Bodysnatch’ “Euphony (Just 4 London)’ and Unique 3′ “The Theme’ offer excursions out into rolling proto-junglist breakbeats and early nineties bleep techno in the vein of LFO, respectively.
Strangely though, just as the electronics are really starting to rear forward in the mix, Thy Lord and Scott 1200 opt to bring the focus back towards classic disco-funk, with the driving Sylvester-esque bass grooves of Greyship Daviz’ “Get Up Get Down And Let Your Body Pop’ leading things down into the midtempo Sugarhill-tinged jazz-funk soul of Kid Creole & The Coconuts’ “Stool Pigeon.’ From there, The Fearless Four’ Kraftwerk-heisting “Rockin’ It’s offers one last blast of electro-fuelled uprock, before Leon Ware and Carroll Thompson take things out with the sort of chilled-out soul the Back To Mine series is far more accustomed to, with the latter’ ragga-tinged “I’m So Sorry’ trailing effortlessly into Earth, Wind & Fire’ “Departure’, a more than fitting closing track here. The Bugz are certainly to be commended for crafting a selection that noticeably favours rare gems and obscurities from all of the respective vintage genres being explored here, resulting in a mix offering that’s definitely one of the more interesting volumes in the Back To Mine series to appear in quite a while.
Chris Downton
