You’ll need glue to really get to grips with the sound of [a]Omnivore[/a]’s JJ Key. Not as a replacement drug for E, mind, but smothered across dancefloors, since only then can clubbers reasonably attempt the slo-mo shuffle required to dance to his records.
These are like house music which has almost fallen asleep. Heavy in mad rave stabs decelerated to analogue gloop that travels slower than the oil in lava lamps. Peppered with obese beats which don’t so much kick arse, as need a kick up the arse. The resultant brew is half modern dub, half comedic funk of the kind favoured by [a]Luke Vibert[/a] and Funki Porcini, a hotpotch of dippy vocal samples, bizarre sonic U-turns and vacillating bass. Trouble is, for every warmly stoned groove (such as the trippy-tronica of ‘Showbiz Legend’) there are numerous seriously unfunky, extraordinarily lumpen outbreaks akin to paltry demos and failed experiments.
Too often, you’re left with the impression that, far from believing strongly in his chill-out sphere, [a]Omnivore[/a] makes this kind of music because he hasn’t yet sussed out how to make dance music you can actually dance to. Other than like a knackered sloth, that is.