- Dancehall, a Jamaican sound popular around the world for decades, has long lurked on the fringes of underground dance music. At the moment, it's inching a bit closer than usual. Consider Equiknoxx, whose album Bird Sound Power came out last year on Demdike Stare's DDS label. It became one of this site's favorite LPs of 2016 and landed the Jamaican crew gigs like Unsound Festival in Poland. Another current ambassador for the sound is Sharon Stern, the MC known as Miss Red. After meeting Kevin Martin (AKA The Bug) at a gig in 2011, she appeared on his Angels & Devils album, then released a 7-inch (Murder) and a mixtape produced by Martin and Mark Pritchard among others. Now she delivers her first 12-inch, Under Attack, with both tracks produced by The Bug.
For a record by an Israeli MC and a sonic provocateur like Martin, Under Attack is surprisingly traditional. Rather than modern mutations of the sound, this is straightforward, party-rocking dancehall. Martin's beats are excellent, but save the grinding walls of noise in the second half of "Lock Off The Dance," he mostly stays in the background, letting Stern take center stage. Rightfully so, as she is a fierce and dynamic MC, cooing hauntingly one moment and spitting threats the next. The record's two tracks show the breadth of her sound: brash and in-your-face on the searing "Lock Off The Dance," haunting and melodic on "Deep Space." Like Murder before it, this EP leaves you wanting more.
TracklistA Lock Off The Dance
B Deep Space