An old friend, Garth, sent me his Spotify end of year most played playlist and named this, Wu-Lu's LOGGERHEAD as his favourite album of the year. Naturally, trusting his taste, I gave it a listen. It's a fine record indeed.
This one exists within a noble British tradition of uncomfortable 'street' records Going back through Stormzy, Young Fathers, The Streets themselves, Grime, Goldie, Roni Size & Reprazent and Prodigy to the point where Irvine Welsh published Trainspotting and started this particular ball rolling probably. LOGGERHEAD has enough of its own juice to deserve mention in such hallowed company. It's an immediately arresting record.
Garth described it as 'a harder-edged Massive Attack', and I concur there too. There's not much better in my book than anything that reminds me of Massive Attack and this certainly does. Perhaps Tricky was the original, 'harder-edged Massive Attack', I suppose and it reminds me of him too. It has Tricky's distinctive unease in his own skin. Listening to it is like having an itch you can't scratch.
It's very much the sound of the UK's underbelly which we've got used to being reminded of in popular culture over the last thirty years. It's a Metamorphosis record by which I mean Kafka. Like waking up from your comfortable bed and finding yourself in a distinctly uncomfortable one. In an overcrowded, freezing and smelly squat, surrounded by addicts with rodents scrambling under the foorboards .
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