- Guilty Simpson's Ode to the Ghetto was one of the few heavyweight releases in what has otherwise been a fairly dire year for hip-hop, and his work with Fat City's Black Pocket is an appropriately solid foundation for various remix extrapolations on three of the four tracks on this 12-inch. Mark Pritchard's work as Harmonic 313 can tend towards the squeaky clean, and Simpson's vocal "For the D" grimes things up nicely—the stuttering electronic squelches are engagingly lopsided, and even at the end of the track it feels like the patterns are still unfolding. While Pritchard's remixes aren't either abstract or gritty enough to satisfy electronica or hip-hop camps respectively, it's a nagging head nodder, and the world will always need a few of those.
It's Martyn's remix of "Ure a Star" by Black Pocket that provides the main motivation for seeking this somewhat obscure remix 12-inch out, though. Previously a producer of drum & bass, his prolific run of dubstep excursions for Applepips, Soul Jazz, and his own 3024 label have been influential in revitalizing the two-step skip of UK garage in recent dubstep. Here, darkly modal chords recall the angular jazzstep of Blame, while a falsetto vocal emotes on top until it sounds exhausted. It's nothing that couldn't have been released on Moving Shadow in 1995, but when it yields condensed soulfulness and plaintive emotional strokes like this, such nostalgia feels powerfully alluring.
TracklistA1 Guilty Simpson - For the D (Harmonic 313 Version Street)
A2 Guilty Simpson - For the D (Harmonic 313 Version Instr)
B1 Black Pocket - Ure a Star (Martyn Remix)
B2 Guilty Simpson - For the D (Harmonic 313 Version Clean)