Chapter Twenty
Two Steps Beyond
5 records, in the order the book names them
-
001
Sound Bwoy Burial
Gant
Indeed, the rude-boy factor of the ragga patois voice in speed garage anthems like Gant’s ‘Sound Bwoy Burial’ probably acted to ‘inoculate’ against the ‘effeminate’ sensuality of house (in the tune the MC talks about ‘ruffhouse’, as if christening the new genre the track is birthing in front of our ears and sharply distinguishing it from regular house music).
Positivatrack Open ↗ YouTube -
002
Dubplate
Soundscape
Even stranger mix-and-blend came with R & B bootlegs like Large Joints ‘Dubplate’ and the anonymous illegal version of KP and Envyi’s ‘Swing My Way’.
Satellitetrack Open ↗ YouTube -
003
It’s A London Thing
Scott Garcia
And you can see it in UK garage, which – like jungle before it – is full of references to place, from the early speed-garage anthem ‘It’s A London Thing’ by Scott Garcia and MC Styles to Middlerow’s 2000 tune ‘Millennium Twist’ with its Dickens-inspired lyrics and chorus ‘L.O.N.D.O.N. London/That’s where we’re coming from’. 2step’s musical sources are actually ‘coming from’ everywhere but London, but the final composite is indelibly stamped with a fierce sense of geographical identity.
Connectedtrack Open ↗ YouTube -
004
Reload
Orbital
Together with their clique So Solid Crew, a thirty-strong MC/producer/vocalist collective, Oxide & Neutrino also run a pirate station, Delight FM. It was while deejaying on a pirate show that Oxide got the idea for ‘Reload’, his very first track.
album Open ↗ YouTube -
005
Battle
Model 500
The soundtrack is a chart-bound anthem that’s played at least once an hour at every club I visit: Wookie’s ‘Battle’.
both Metroplextrack Open ↗ YouTube
Nothing matches
No record here carries that word. Clear the filter to bring back all 5.