part 2 - live from the breadline
stepping out from the background from producing new flesh, keith hopewell aka part 2, gets round to sorting out his debut album.
as to be expected, the range of sounds are all very current, modern and easily defined as 'urban', with a spread of grime beats, hip hop, old school garage, dubbed up bass lines, tech-step moves, and probably a whole bunch of subgenres that mean little to me other than they make my speakers move and pulsate. alongside the machine made musics are several vocals for hire who have appeared on other recent ninjatune albums. so we get recent diplo star, sandra melody's melodic dancehall jumpstarts, fallacy and juice aleem doing their hip hop thing, and even more dancehall toasting from toastie taylor on the excellent electro infused 'sow seeds' with sandra melody, to name but a few, but my favourite tracks feature the sweet harmonious tones of leeds boy lsk, who lovingly caresses 3 of the 14 tracks on offer. the best being 'rose tinted glasses', with a wonderful big fat bass noise that maintains the old school reggae focus. so while the album is mish mash of styles, part 2 manages to make the flow and stylistic jumps feel natural, like some well sequenced mixtape providing all manner of insights into what the club scene in 2005 thrives on.
so for anyone needing an aural document of the current sound of clubs and suchlike, then part 2's album is a great place to feel up to date while never having to leave your living room. bonus points.