Black Rave Culture

Black Rave Culture Vol 2

Genre: JUNGLE / FOOTWORK, ELECTRONIC

MP3
FLAC
WAV

Boomkat Product Review:

Washington DC trio James Bangura, Amal and DJ Nativesun meet again in thunder, lightning and rain on this second genre-busted set of Black dancefloor futurism for MoMa Ready and AceMo's Haus of Altr imprint. Essential listening for fans of Kush Jones, DJ Swisha, Bored Lord or DJ Earl.

When Bangura, Amal and Nativesun came together for last year's "Black Rave Culture Vol. 1" they stripped the bloat from techno, jungle, footwork and house elements and recombined them into a pulpous rave superstructure that fed the feet and the grey matter simultaneously. The trio resume their journey on "Vol. 2", distilling diasporic dancefloor sounds into a body-jolting pulse of pure bass momentum - a delirious spiral of hard-swung kicks, razor-sharp breaks, disorienting pads and dissociated vocals. The message is still intact, but as the three producers have become more at ease with each other's skills, their respective sounds have melted together more readily, becoming far harder to prize apart.

Opener 'Never Left' draws us in with sad jazz loops and euphoric pads, echoing prime-era LTJ Bukem (particularly his pivotal "Logical Progression" series) but trading taught, harmonic jungle elastics for Jersey kick flurries, vocal cuts and urgent clap patterns. 'Activate' is the point at which Bangura, Amal and Nativsun's message blares clearest, with cleanly chopped breaks teased across booming TR-909 toms and the kind of eerily melodic synth ice that made the Detroit era shiver with android logic. 'Moroccan Mist' is even more effective, dimming the lights to focus our attention on hi-BPM syncopated kicks that roll into alien footwork assemblages, fluxing thru vocal oohs and lost-world synth dreams - there are so many rave elements hinted at here, it's like hearing decades of history collapsed into a single propulsive rhythm and a vaporous mist of psychedelic memories.

Black Rave Culture hit another high with the smudgy 'Sub Poppin', a bass worshipping neo-ballroom inversion that bends chopped 'Ha Dance' samples around rubberized low end womps, tense clattering percussion and microsampled vocals. There's no cynicism to Bangura, Amal and Nativesun's construxions - they're economical, but packed to the brim with energy; like the best hybrid dance trax they flat out refuse to loot the past, instead building on its example, emerging with a polish that's surprising and exhilarating. Like Haus of Altr bosses MoMa Ready and AceMo's productions before them, Black Rave Culture's latest grip is material ur certain to hear resonating thru soundsystems across the world in the next few months - do not sleep!

MP3 Release (12)