- Bristol meets Brixton on this speaker-rattling EP.
- Grime, but make it dancehall. That's the idea behind "Crossing The Line," one of those tectonic—no pun intended—bangers that Pinch releases every few years. This time he's teamed up with Kahn, though the duo don't so much combine their forces as streamline into one. "Crossing The Line" is a hulking monster that puts most of its weight down low, letting the sub-bass prop up acrobatic verses from the Brixton MCs Killa P, Irah and Long Range, AKA Killa's Army. Like the best of these fierce MC-producer collabs—think Breakage's "Hard" from a few years ago—Pinch and Kahn leave room for for the vocalists to do their thing, occasionally adding an eye-watering low-end thrust to the drums to underline certain passages. Otherwise, it's just colossal snares and rumbling bass with the occasional siren or shrieking synth, a welcome combination of Bristol and South London traditions.
The instrumental B-side, "Send Out," is nearly as good. More technoid and precise, its repetitive vocal sample and careful percussion recall the era when Pinch was working closely with Mumdance and company. But this one, too, pulls no punches, occasionally forming into a jackhammer pattern designed for pure destruction. Pinch, and to a lesser extent Kahn, have been working with these sounds and ideas for years now, but they always find ways to make them fearsome all over again.
TracklistA Crossing The Line feat. Killa's Army
B Send Out