South London based Slowfoot records have certainly not saturated the musical universe with an overabundance of product since their inception in 2001. Preferring to keep things mostly in-house, percussionist and co-founder of the label, Frank Byng’s coterie of friends and associates has produced a body of work that reflects the melting-pot environment of the Southside of the UK’s preeminent metropolis, whilst staying true to their own particular muse. There’s been a veritable flurry of releases from the label in the last few months, with three playful albums that maintain a wayward experimental contrariness in their DNA. Starting with Snorkel’s sophomore album Stop Machine, I’ll be reviewing Sebastian Rochford/Pamelia Kurstin and Crewdson’s Slowfoot releases in the coming days, here on Cyclic Defrost.
It was maverick Tuba wrangler Oren Marshall’s album Introduction to the Story of Spedy Sponda that piqued my interest in the Slowfoot label. Falling somewhere between electronic abandon, jazz hypnosis and the Royston Vasey Memorial Brass Band, his 2004 album is one of only two tuba-related albums in my record collection. Stop Machine has no tuba narcosis, but plenty of light-hearted, funky soundscapes that pit atmospherics and experimental textures against driving breakbeats and razor-sharp guitar licks straight off a classic reggae or Fela Kuti album. “Loophole” is the most memorable moment I’ve heard from Snorkel so far, an impressive blend of widescreen Detroit-techno soaked noir, music for a 70s foreign spy thriller and modern house music, such as Nicolas Jaar or Missing Linkx. Echoic, malfunctioning drum machines are involved in a pile up with the writhing, funk-infused horn section, as the rolling breakbeats nod towards the dance floor.
Elsewhere, Snorkel focus on lively, instrumental tunes mixing the rhythmic intensity of Krautrock and Afrobeat with the downtempo good times of near-neighbours, the Ninja Tune label. The title track features an insanely catchy mix of muscular funk moves, wah-wah, clipity clop percussion and an electro bassline. Truncated vocal tics a la James Brown or David Yow bounce up against metallic guitars, pushed through a blender and mixed with the freneticism of early Chicago House. “Driller” comes across like the late 90s Drum and Bass of the Moving Shadow label or Reprezent, as a rubbery bass and syncopated two-step provides the necessary rhythmic bedrock for the tension-building guitars and odd, backwards sounding riffs. The dub-soaked “Edgar Hoover”‚ melds the echoing horns of angry white van drivers, bouncing around the wet streets of North Clapham, with spacious tape-experiment textures. Slowfoot’s own in-house crooner Charles Stuart, weirds things out on “Dead Skin”, the only ode I’m aware of that tackles the amazing ability of the human race to shed football pitch-sized quantities of skin in the bathroom. Starting out all dark and glowering like Deaf Centre, a loping beat, a rocksteady bass and tight horn passages move things into electric-era Miles Davis meets Tortoise territory. Stop Machine is a very convincing hybrid, bringing disparate influences together to form a lopsided fourth-world funk of the highest order.
Oliver Laing
