Leeroy Thornhill continues to broaden the profile of his Electric Tastebuds imprint with a pair of collaborations keeping his name comfortably ensconced within his adopted breaks barracks. As Smash Hi-Fi, in cahoots with Germany’s Marten Hoerger, Everything You Need is nothing if not descriptive. Letting the bass take its time to burst through over tentative stabs, it wields itself in clinical conforming, with a standard issue of electro-shocked buzz-saw, swooping and diving synths and a loosely stuck-up vocal (head for the dub if you’ve had enough of pigtail-twirling bubble-gum blowers cropping up on breaks releases). Other than the introduction of a clunky set of out of tune chords on top that are just about coherent (it’ll throw you first time around), it’s fair game and sends down plenty of drive; a reliable addition to the Tastebuds palette that’s still finding its feet as a fledgling imprint. Thornhill seems to be focussing on getting the basics in breaks right, so while the explosions may do as the manual says, his platforms are certainly not built on quicksand.
Thornhill hooking up with Joe Morena (remixer of Simply Red and The Human League, no less) makes up Jagged Slap, and the separate release of 10 Pence Short won’t short-change you; again it’s a straight-as-a-die break-out, structured by lots of lustily struck, Give Me Luv-style chords. Drop-down bass this time plays second fiddle, and it’s a strider of a very mechanised fluorescence. Mick Hucknall would’ve struggled to ride this one. The Wrongstar Society are on the remix, and drop in with their best straight-up-breaks heads on (often relegated to the touchline on the Beats Rhymes and Conflicts LP), rather than shooting their mouths off in hopes of infamy. Coming out of the sky with burning missiles, the supersonic scorched lines may only go in one direction, but they zoom through with firepower in spades, and will have raw-eared punters craving the ass-kicking that results when each one drops.