January 9th, 2012 • Albums, Reviews
Benjamin Damage & Doc Daneeka – They!Live
Swansea natives Benjamin Damage and Doc Daneeka have trodden very different paths over the past couple of years en route to this nine-track collaboration.
Back in 2009, the fat-bottomed broken house productions being cooked up by Daneeka in Wales were already generating serious attention from the likes of Ben UFO and being lumped in, to his surprise, with the UK funky emanating from the capital. Since then his production and remix work – and duties as Ten Thousand Yen label boss – have marked him out as one of the UK’s most consistent names.
Damage, meanwhile, was in London plugging away at the hyperactive hip-house, bassline and ghettotech-influenced mixtapes he and partner Daniel Venom promoted via their 7 Year Glitch blog – until Modeselektor snapped up V&D’s track ‘Deeper’, ultimately paving the way for this release on 50 Weapons.
Tempos remain pretty housey throughout the set, but otherwise there’s a refreshingly mongrel feel to proceedings that’s a good fit for the anti-genre stance of the label bosses. Abigail Wyles contributes vocals to several tracks, ranging from the disembodied Burial-esque fragments kicking off ‘No-one’ to soothing coos on the melancholy, submerged UKG pulse of ‘Halo’.
They!Live’s Berlin recording environment seemingly permeates steely, tech-edged offerings such as ‘Deaf Siren’ and ‘Juggernaut’, while the bass-booming, sirens and breaks-infused ‘Creeper’, re-edited from last year’s 12” release, simply oozes menace.
But though there’s no shortage of floor-ready gear on display, canny pacing and stylistic variation mean this definitely feels like an album rather than simply a collection of club tracks. A rock-solid full-length debut to kick of 2012 with.
They!Live is released 27 January 2012 on 50 Weapons
Alex
