Here are three hip hop related stories to kick off this review of UK posse The Criminal Mind’s re-released first two stacks of wax from ‘back in tha day’ (well, 1990/91 to be precise). For those without unfeasibly deep pockets, Rephlex come correct, doing a great community service to us aging B-Boys.
1) Heading into town one afternoon with the family, about 1984, I vividly recall a crew of older kids throwing down some mad breakdance moves on cardboard in a closed arcade. What did it mean, what are they doing? Beguiling, but just beyond my rapidly evolving comprehension, at the time.
2) Visiting family in the UK around 1987, hearing of the Beastie Boys, who were on their first European tour. Their legions of fans were aping their heroes by repurposing VW badges from English motors. Shock, Horror!!! Seems quite tame in retrospect, but the moral majority was incensed.
3) A year later, heavily into NWA’s first album (more of that later), my Grandmother wanted to know what was I was listening to on my natty bright yellow waterproof Sony ‘Sports’ Walkman. It might have been ‘Fuck Tha Police’ or ‘Dopeman’ that greeted her delicate sensibilities. How do you explain that to a 70-year-old?
Anyways, enough Hip Hop reminiscences… Which brings me back to Rephlex’s timely reissue of TCM Recordings first two releases, Guilty as Charged (recorded straight to 4-track in DJ Spatt’s bedroom), and Tales from the Wasteland. These EP’s were no doubt initially sold out of the back of an older brother’s Ford Fiesta or dingy record stores, but now fetch a tidy three figure sum on the superwebnet. The Criminal Minds were those threatening older boys throwing shapes, sporting fat laces, puffa jackets and informed by Big Daddy Kane, N.W.A. and Rakim. Fortunately, by the time of these recordings, they’d asserted their own unique UK identity and patois, mixing the fierce lyrical flows of Public Enemy, with the requisite mad skills on the wheels of steel and adding a touch of UK/Jamaican sound system culture and early rave.
From the first cut, it’s raw breakbeats, boom-bap drumz, frenetic scratchin’ and heavy, heavy 808 action. Cheeky samples were another important ingredient in late 80’s rap  the Star Wars / NWA / every-classic-sample-under-the-sun sampling ‘Urban Warfare’ adds a hilarious faux-BBC voice over, warning the good burghers of Middle England about T.C.M., especially DJ Spatt’s “Illegal Beat Constructionâ€Â, MC Iceski, the Lyrical Vigilante and “Hip Hop Tactician†DJ Halo. You can almost here the samples and loops clunking into place on ‘Systems Overload Remix’, where apocalyptic orchestral stabs, classic breaks and a tough psychedelic edge tumble over each other  the ‘Hardcore Continuum’ starts here…
The Halo’s Mind Mix of ‘Weapon of Choice’ hints at the territory where Junglist turntablists such as DJ Hype ventured a few years later. Iceski spits in a manner reminding me of Norwich’s Def Tex crew, who were doing their thing in East Anglia around the same time. Tongue twisting, unforgettable lyrical scenes are set with ease and panache. “Suspect packages left where we rocked it†– indeed! ‘A Taste of Armageddon’ nods towards Mantronix style Electro impulses; mixing in chanting monks, ping ponging synth washes and spaced atmospherics. The follow track, ‘Who is Next for the Graveyard’, reprises the same beat and spins it into a paranoid darkside vortex suggestive of the moody atmospheres that soon ruled the dance.
Buckinghamshire based The Criminal Minds went on to record for early Jungle labels White House and Labello Blanco. 1992’s ‘Baptized By Dub’ sets the rocksteady riddim (also found as the rhythmic basis of ‘Shouts Outs’, on this release), and steps on the tempo, chucks in some chipmunk vocals, piano vamps and the hyperkinetic atmosphere of early breakbeat hardcore. Rephlex restates a vital ingredient in the Hardcore Continuum, reminding wizened B-Boys and those too young to remember, just how exhilarating and life-affirming stupid dope beats and lyrical vigilantism could be.
Oliver Laing
