Listening again to Monkey Mafia's dub-infused cover of Creedence Clearwater Revival at the weekend, go me thinking about another of Jon Carter's excursions into Jamaican culture.
This in turn prompted a delve into the archives of my old blog, and an album review from 11th February 2007, namely Two Culture Clash, an intriguing compilation first issued 23rd August 2004.
What did my younger self think of it? Over to, er, me.
This Wall Of Sound release purports to be an innovative creative pairing of electronic music producers with (predominantly Jamaican) reggae/dancehall greats. The sleeve notes even go so far as to sniffily dismiss other efforts as a “half-baked, ham-fisted assemblage of dancehall vocals grafted onto electronic beats in a studio on the other side of the Atlantic”.
So, has
bringing the producers to Jamaica and locking them in a studio with the
island’s “lyrical wordsmiths” produced the “unprecedented” success that
writer David Katz clearly believes it is? Well, of course not.
There
are some undeniably great moments on this album, but be under no
illusion that Two Culture Clash
has resulted in something completely new. Instead, the producers seem to have moulded their sound to complement the performers, most of whom
dish out the lyrical clichés that both characterise and damn the musical
genre.
If you can accept that this won’t be the earth-shattering,
life-changing album that the hype suggests, then you can settle back and
enjoy nearly an hour’s worth of good music.
How Do You Love?
is a deliberate shot at the charts, with Jon Carter bringing out the
best in vocalists Patra (who guested on his Monkey Mafia single Work Mi Body) and Danny English*.
The two Jacques Lu Cont tracks - …And Dance and Na Na Na Na
– are perhaps the album’s dancefloor highlights, with a minimal,
pulsing beats that prove impossible to resist. General Degree provides
vocals on both, but the addition of Ce’Cile on the latter is like a
pumped up version of Cookies by Ciara.
It should be no suprise that Roni Size doesn’t disappoint on Knock Knock, a muscular rhythm suiting Spragga Benz’s rough monotone delivery, whilst West London Deep’s Rudie No! featuring
Big Youth comes on like The Specials in space.
There are inevitably a
couple of disappointments. Kid606 seems uncharacteristically restrained
on This Anuh Rampin’ and it’s left to Switch on the subsequent Love Guide
(featuring Ms. Thing) to take the sound in an abstract direction that
the Kid is usually more than capable of.
Phillipe Zdar
(Cassius/Motorbass) injects Get Crazy
with an infectious, pulsating rhythm, let down only by Innocent Kru’s
tired (and tiresome) lyrics. But these are small gripes.
Elsewhere,
Howie B. and Horace Andy team up for Fly High,
a dub extravaganza that is arguably the best song that Massive Attack
never recorded, whilst Justin Robertson’s retro dancehall ballad Save Me closes the album.
Showcasing a vocal from Nadine Sutherland and Ernie Ranglin, Save Me is guaranteed to send a shiver down your spine… and get you skanking uncontrollably.
As long as you skip the sleeve notes' hyperbole ,
then Two Culture Clash is a great album. It's not as ground breaking as
it's instigators think it is, but it is worth more than a casual
listen.
As a 2025 footnote, I recall buying this CD via eBay for a few quid, as part of my quest to plug gaps in my collection of Justin Robertson's music (which I'm still trying - and failing - to do today). A look on Discogs reveals that you can still easily pick up a copy for less than a fiver, postage included.
* I was sad to discover when creating the artist links that Danny English aka Donald Cox died on 23rd January this year, aged just 54.
