Leeroy Thornhill makes his showcase bow, issuing orders for his Tasty label’s carte du jour to blow away post-Christmas cobwebs. Tasty dishes up a breaks repertoire always with its fists raised, full of low ends with big backlifts squaring up against memories of old skool hardcore reminding everyone of their invincibility.
As label head the ex-Prodigy position player certainly seems to have shaken up the wayward Wrongstar Society for one. The Wrongstars continue to translate their Estuary English venom for the greater good to the mix board, Spotlight a nasty electro-breaks flesh eater as an 8-bit nemesis and a good, ungentlemanly welcome to the fold. They’re tailed by 601’s physical breakbeat examination on the remix, gargling and snorting gutter bass like its doing a row of Listerine shots.
Controlled Change’s space odyssey Deppression isa technically simple but very effective sitting within a tin can, the label’s new boys coordinating opposing sides of bass and drums bashed in while synths go airborne. The samples of disaster movie dialogue will have you craning to get closer to the picture, because there’s nothing that grabs attention more than a hapless spin into a starry abyss.
Thornhill’s partnerships with Marten Hoerger as Smash Hi-FI, and Joe Morena for the duo Jagged Slap, bear the compilation’s more modest motifs. JS’ peppy breaks on Bubba Gump is almost light digital relief given the contrasting sensations charging around it, though in fairness their Jagged sets itself to stoking fires in bellies with its rough rave galacatica getting caught in the adjoining hullabaloo. SHF’s funky rave rumble Take You Back flicks a V at pigeonhole manufacturers with its hip-shaking, mismatch-done-good of tribal beats, old skool riffs and breaks technology. Such is the dirt, the whoomping, ear-pinching 15 Hundred Dollars sounds and smells like Smash Hi-Fi haven’t washed for weeks, punters’ chops chapped by the pair’s whirring electro spokes, though the weedy sample right at the end could’ve been given its marching orders.
Thornhill’s own Headgrind is easy to lump in as post-Prodigy, electro-rock hot air, quite happy to play out pre-meditated set pieces without really pushing itself past breaks’ presets. 1 Man Army is a much better, minimal vocal prowl: good elevation on the breakdowns and featuring the Tastebuds’ fast becoming essential moon and stars backdrop, lightly dashed with a spritz of scary 80s synth-pop. Debutant Kouncil House goes head to head with the label superior and again, Rock the Party is grizzly but lacking a touch of inspiration (much like the moniker), though by himself, KH’s Hacker boards a Star Wars boogie with a bullfrog of a bass.
Without too many leaps of faith, it’s a tidy ensemble that Thornhill oversees. His collaborations (giving him license to adjust velocity as and when) and headline acts may bear negligible differentials, but they’re all pushing in the same direction of that dervish-rapped electro-breaks sound, and all paraded have bedded in for future potential.