Record Of The Week: London Zoo

June 20th, 2008

It seems like a prolific time for Kevin Martin. In the past year or so he has steadily released a slew of singles, been involved in many fruitful collaborations and even started a new label spotlighting female dub, grime and Dancehall MCs. However the point of this blurb is to highlight his new album on Ninja Tune, London Zoo, under his Bug alias.

The album could be filed under the ‘dubstep‘ genre for convenience sake, but that would be more coincidental. The Bug has been reinterpreting dub in his own way well before dubstep became a household word. While this album does fit within the associated BPMs and beat patterns of the South London genre, you can definitely hear Grime and Dancehall elements shine through. Well by shine through I guess I mean shine through a cracked window of a warehouse in an industrial park. The songs are gritty, heavy and stomping mechanic orchestrations balanced well with ominous melodies and atmospherics. A prime example is You & Me with Roger Robinson as the guest MC (This tune is also enough to get people excited about Martin and Robinson’s King Midas Sound album).

My favorite tune is Freak Freak. It has subtle beauty and is otherworldly. Also what is with Fuckaz? Is this some sort of sequel to the original song produced by Kode 9? Either way this tune is another favorite and is almost as good as the original Fuckaz which also features Space Ape on vocals. You can probably still dig that up on Bleep.

Pre-order London Zoo at Ninja Tune

Written by Celery Moon |