- The latest release on Plastic Raygun is Lo Slung by Stablizer - the first tune to be lifted from his soon to be released album Canine, and from the reports at Raygun HQ, the album is the dog's bollocks *ahem*. Stablizer's gone out of his way to satisfy various palette's with Lo Slung, offering up a breakbeat mix, an album mix and roping in stablemate Vandal for a rocking remix.
Breaks mix
The breaks mix is a tough 130 bpm stormer opening up with clean drum breaks and an electro melody - enough to make you wanna do the electric boogaloo. There's a quick breakdown featuring vocal samples from the MC before the drums return with some phat bass drops, deft scratching and a clever hook on top. Great production on the breaks mix, Stabilizer was clever to include some neatly placed drum fills to add variation to the tune and there's good news for DJ's too - there's a gradual anti-climax at the end which works well when introducing another tune.
Album Mix
The album mix is on a hip hop tip. Electronic artist meets hip hop MC - similar to works such as Diesel Power by The Prodigy featuring Kool Keith and Leftfield's Dusted with Roots Manuva - big, dubby electronic bassline and heavy drum breaks while the MC gets all abstract with their lyrical content. The album mix introduces some horn samples into the mix and thankfully keeps the wicked scratch routine. Quite a surprise to hear this mix as I always considered Plastic Raygun to be a breaks only label.
Vandal Mix
Vandal gives the breaks a tough rock treatment including one eager sounding cowbell which is present throughout the whole tune (hey you can never have enough cowbell!). The track actually progresses slowly adding ingredients slowly to the mix (like 1 per 8 bars) such as a rocky bassline and some synths on top, and Vandal cuts up a little more vocal from the album mix to use in the tune. Perhaps not the greatest I've heard from Vandal, at 7 minutes long the tune does drag on a bit - perhaps requiring a little more variation melody wise or maybe the lyrics of the album mix in full.
Breakbeat enthusiasts will appreciate the breaks mix as it sits between the funky side and the dark side, yet keeping all the good points about each (one for the Phantom Beats boys ;) ), yet there's enough funk in the hip hop mix for any fans to get a little jiggy with this tune! Hopefully the Vandal remix will grow on me, however this release should be a must have for 2004.