Scratch Perverts - Watch the Ride

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  • If Ableton is dance music’s Deep Blue, Scratch Perverts are its Gary Kasparov. The trio – Tony Vegas, Prime Cuts and Plus One – are mankind’s last hope against robo-mixing, trying to prove that three heads over four turntables opens more exciting possibilities than one dude hunched over his glowing Mac. Perverts mixes – as evidenced by ‘Watch The Ride’ – are tight, dense, and run the gamut from bouncy hip-hop to drum ‘n bass destruction and everything in between. Thing is, though, that this initially novel approach has become their formula by now, and it is wearing a little thin. Things get started in typical macho Scratch Perverts fashion, with Dynamite MC dishing his swagger and strut over a Prodigy-ish beat. It’s been-there, heard-that, but it does the job getting your blood pumping, until they just dump you unceremoniously into track two, Pharoahe Monch’s funky hip-hopper ‘Push’. Things get worse before they get better, with Freestylers & Million Dan’s ‘Dogs and Sledgez’ up next, obnoxious to begin with but now nearly three years old and smelling well past its expiration date. Then it’s the overproduced ‘Tika Toc’ by Skibadee, who does himself no favors with a flow nearly identical to Dynamite MC. Scratch Perverts’ own ‘Drop’ is where ‘Watch The Ride’ finally revs up, and along with ‘Freaks’ and TC collaboration ‘Fuck What You Heard’, it shows these guys have a lot more promise as producers than they get credit for. Immediately following ‘Drop’ the Perverts interrupt this program for a minute-and-a-half of ‘In Session’ turntable wizardry, which opens the floodgates for a seamless tour through seemingly disparate genres. The infectious and eerie Jammer remix of Roots Manuva’s ‘Colossal Insight’ bridges the mix into dubstep territory, with Loefah and Skream scraping the bassbin dregs for a mere two minutes before it’s already off in a new direction: slick grime via the likes of Akala & Skinnyman and then the UNKLE remix of ‘No One Knows’ by Queens of the Stone Age. It’s a cracking tune, though a few years old and not as memorable a transition to a drum ‘n bass assault as Radiohead’s ‘National Anthem’ was on Scratch Perverts ‘FabricLive 22’. Still, the Perverts’ DnB selection is choice stuff, particularly the massive ‘Number One’ by Die & Clipz feat. Ben Westbeech. ‘Watch The Ride’ definitely has a more-of-the-same feel for those familiar with the Scratch Perverts style, but they still take a wholly unique approach to making a compilation. The mixing is deft and quite often memorably creative, no small feat considering the wipe gaps between genres. Still, no one genre apart from DnB is given the time it deserves. Sure, there are twenty four tracks, but ‘Watch The Ride’ clocks in at a pitiful 57 minutes. Would it have killed them to dwell just a little longer in the primordial ooze of dubstep, for instance? After ‘Watch The Ride’, the Perverts might do better to focus on single genre mixes. The melting-pot approach is getting tired, and it’d be more interesting now to hear what these guys would throw into an all hip-hop or drum ‘n bass disc.
  • Tracklist
      1 Scratch Perverts - Watch The Ride (Intro Edit) 2 Pharoahe Monch - Push 3 Million Dan - Dogz N Sledgez 4 Skibadee - Tika Toc 5 Scratch Perverts - Freaks 6 Mark Ronson - Just 7 Chemical Brothers - Rize Up 8 Scratch Perverts - Drop (Compilation Mix) 9 Scratch Perverts - In Session 10 SebastiAn - Ross Ross Ross 11 Spank Rock - Bump (Original Mix) 12 Roots Manuva - Colossal Insight (Jammer RMX) 13 Loefah - Rufage 14 Skream - Blipstream 15 Vex'd - Bollocks 16 Wiley - Babylon Burner
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