January 6, 2003

Various Artists : Billy Nasty: BN02: Electro

A fine mix-CD...

8 / 10 It's a prosaic point, but an important one: most new-wave electro records (alright, go on then, electroclash records) are too slow to really rock dancefloors. Vitalic's 'La Rock 01', Fischerspooner's 'Emerge', Luke Slater's 'Nothing At All'... you can build a set out of such tunes, but they are the exception to the somewhat plodding norm, usually remixed by Felix Da Housecat.

The feistier tunes, the electro tunes that up the bpms, generally, come from the darker breakbeat/ techno end of the spectrum, and so it makes perfect sense that stalwart techno DJ Billy Nasty - who, incidentally, runs his own cutting-edge electrofunk label, Electrix - would be able to turn out a sterling electro set.

This 16-track odyssey (available from www.djbillynasty.com) is relentlessly energetic, as dark and solid as mahogany and awash with the neo-gothic sleaze, the interesting textures and the drama that the grittier nu-electro tunes excel at. It's a meaty, rounded package, and so redolent of great, twisted nights at Bugged Out that you can virtually smell the sweat.

Openers Blotnik Brothers 'Taxi Simulator 2000' and Delinquent Dialect's 'Humanoid Machine' set the scene, perfectly. Robot's natter portentously, low-end noises build a head-of-steam, acid squiggles stir and drum-machines jolt into life. Delinquent Dialect's beats, notably, sound like a troop of flat-footed Transformers amassing in the next county.

Through Scape One's pranged electro squalls, Radioactive Man's 'The Mezz' and The Hacker's punchy epic 'Nothing Lasts' the subterranean electro-noir excitement continues. Here, sub-bass shudders, bass-lines growl and even toppier synth sounds grizzle a bit.

Not that Mr Nasty can't do nice. A DJ who knows a thing or two about pace and texture, he breaks things up with Carl A Finlow's sweet electro-pop, uses Chris McCormick and Netwerkz Florida to take a relatively ambient mid-CD breather and, well, if Scape One's distorto-funk wig-out 'Simple Machines' of Frequenzberater's insane, chugging fuzz-bass closer, 'Corvette', don't make you smile, then NME pities you.

A fine mix-CD of itself, 'BNO2:Electro' also reaffirms new-wave electro's strength-in-depth and, in turn, its potential staying-power. Rather camp totalitarian funkers Dynamix II have it right, it's time to: 'Pledge Your Allegiance To Electro Funk'.

Tony Naylor