Rufige Kru - Memoirs of an Afterlife
Posted by
Belinda Rowse at
19/05/2012 02:57:32
After a two-year hiatus, following the success of the Malice in Wonderland album in 2007, Goldie is back with partner in crime, and expert engineer, Heist, bringing us further D&B damage from Metalheadz HQ, with the second Rufige Kru album, Memoirs Of An Afterlife.
Featuring some of the scene’s strongest producers – D Bridge, Alix Perez, Sabre and A.I – Memoirs Of An Afterlife seamlessly showcases cutting edge sounds alongside trademark Rufige Kru rumbling. It’s pretty intense. Right from the opening track, Mirror, featuring the fearsome D Bridge, to the grand finale, Lost Rufige, the album brings together undulating basslines, warped sounds and deep, progressive flavours (Just When You Thought), with some nods to the dancefloor provided by tracks like One More Time, and the more hypnotic, minimal sounds of Only When I Dream to balance it out.
It’s creative, compelling and just a little bit special. Sometime Sad Day is a particularly beautiful track, with a lovely lilting b-line, rattling drums and a melancholic undertone to the piano keys and purring SFX. A.I picks up the pace and gets dark and heavy in Letting Go, with stunning, haunting vocals from Jenna G that have a poignant intensity to them. But it’s Babylon 2012 that marks the biggest departure from the traditional Rufige Kru sound – delving into dubstep territory with this number, pushing the genre-boundaries with this slab of nasty, and viciously twisted bassline filth. It’s powerful and persuasive, and sits nicely alongside the heavier Metalheadz sounds on the album.
I read in a book once “no very, very good things or very, very bad things last for very, very long”. I think the same can be said for music - no very, very good albums or very, very bad albums come around very, very often. The latest offering from Rufige Kru, Memoirs Of An Afterlife, is a testament to this sentiment (in the positive sense, clearly!)…so enjoy this fantastic and sublimely creative piece of artistry. It’s bang on, and there’s not much stuff of this calibre around very often y’know!