Phantom Power

First, a true story. The day after Goldie's weighty concept album 'Saturnz Return' was released, an irate customer was spotted in a certain Oxford Street megastore demanding his money back ...

FIRST, A TRUE STORY. THE day after Goldie’s weighty concept album ‘Saturnz Return’ was released, an irate customer was spotted in a certain Oxford Street megastore demanding his money back on the grounds he’d been informed said epic was a drum’n’bass record.

Urban Takeover’s Aphrodite and Mickey Finn are two men eminently capable of putting the smile back on our frustrated consumer’s sorry face. These south Londoners may have evolved over the years, taking in soul, jazz, swingbeat, dub and rap along the way, but their music has remained rooted in the thuggish gangster funk that’s at the very heart of d’n’b.

This is the place where rude sub-basslines rattle the floorboards beneath our feet and the funkiest drummers known to man perform impossible rhythmic acrobatics via sampler technology. And, whether in the studio or behind the decks, these two do it better than anyone else.

Aphrodite takes care of CD one and dominates with a significant wedge of his own solo productions and remixes, many of which haven’t even made it to vinyl yet. The thorough sledgehammering of Prodigy’s ‘Funky Shit’ by Mulder you certainly won’t find anywhere else.

It all makes for quite a relentless journey too, with only the briefest of breathers along the way. But with all manner of sampladelia smeared across the mix, from the sunstroked P-funk of Aphrodite original ‘Wicki Wicki Plate’ to the perky Hammonds of Rockerfella’s ‘As We Always Do’, the scenery is never less than breathtaking.

Mickey takes the opposite tack on CD two, opting for a wall-to-wall selection of tested crowd pleasers like DJ Krust’s nuclear ‘Warhead’ and similarly musclebound affairs from Grooverider, Ed Rush & Optical, Prisoners Of Technology and Urban Takeover themselves. Marginally less adventurous than his partner’s selection, but no less wondrous.

Should be pretty quiet on the refund counter next week.

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