The titular flagship of What Did You Say is sort of like a single-speed track bicycle. It has few moving parts, no complicated gear shifting or particularly clever gimmicks, but it's more than sustained by its speed, purity and momentum. Bodycode's Alan Abrahams leads the track right off with the uncomfortably forward-mixed spoken word "How can you say you'd live without me?" question/mantra. Vocalist Lerato sounds like she's right there in the room with us and she's super pissed off. Little hats fire around her like tiny leaks springing out of a highly pressurized fire hose. The bassline shivers under her like a taut rubber band about to snap off in our faces…it's a balancing act of restraint and weirdness. "Our minds and bodies…are one…" she repeats, and thank god she's not my girlfriend.
A creepy hollow clav enters late in the track and takes us off into an expansive landscape that makes the claustrophobia of the vocals all the more arresting. Lerato keeps going with her needy little loop, the percussion goes into tappity-tap overdrive and the whole thing pretty much slaps me in the face like I deserve it. Like I said, it's a simple machine but when all the components are employed at once, it sounds like there is much more in the track than the sum of just eight-odd loops.
There's not quite as much going on in "Imitation Dub," which trades much of the clatteriness of the "Imitation Lover" off Bodycode's latest full-length, Immune, for a lazy keyboard progression and understated cymbal rides. Sadly, the Baha Men-esque "no no no imitation lover" vocal sample remains.
We return to Lerato's PMS for the last cut, a bumping deep dub of "What Did You Say" by early '90s acid-house innovator Peter Ford, aka Baby Ford. He turns our fixed gear bike into a beach cruiser, adding fatty bass tires, some sun and a spliff. The machine crawls down the boardwalk, bouncing echoes off the walls in a satisfied haze. By this time, Lerato is super chill and can totally live without me.
Published /
Fri, 24 Jul 2009
Buy Bodycode - What Did You Say at
  
Tracklist: Bodycode - What Did You Say
 A What Did You Say
AA Imitation Lover (Dub)
B What Did You Say (Baby Ford Remix) | 
