The Beat Surrender

This is the second release in Man Record’s ‘Funk Mundial’ series, which is a transatlantic collaboration between Brazil and Europe. The only reason it has reached your eyes in the form of this review is due to the people involved and the Brazilian link. The track itself is, not to be too kind….horrendous!!

Graeme Sinden plays weekly on Kiss FM and is resident jock at Fabric with a reputation for spinning quality, eclectic dance grooves. His remixes for Basement Jaxx, Bugz In The Attic and even Lady Sovereign have received wide acclaim while his own Counterfeet label consistently puts out 12” ‘bangers’ including ‘The Count’ (a.k.a Joshua ‘Herve’ Harvey’s) ‘Ghetto Bitches E.P’.

The duos most recent track ‘Beepers’ has been caned on Radio 1 by everyone from Zane Lowe to Annie Mac and the upcoming mix of Mr Hudson & The Library’s ‘Ask The DJ’ will probably get heavy rotations too. Sinden’s love of Baile Funk is the reason for this strange pairing with Rio based MC Thiaguinho, formally of legendary Baile funksters Bonde Do Tigrao.

If you’re not familiar with Baile Funk then let me explain. It’s becoming more and more recognised over here due to groups such as CSS, Bonde De Role and even Hip-Hop’s neon princess MIA. It’s more a scene than a style and it’s become Rio and Brazil’s main yet unofficial musical culture. It consists of bad musicians, playing over famous samples and MC’s ‘singing’ about dirty sex and getting wasted, all taking place at dodgy warehouse parties. You can see why it’s popular!

If you’ve heard CSS’s debut album Cansei De Ser Sexy (named after a Beyonce quote of “I’m tired of being sexy”) then you’ll know it can be seriously effective. What we have here though is seriously not!
The ‘Acapella’ may be useful to you DJ’s wanting to drop some filthy lyrics in Brazilian about a girl addicted to booty shaking but the other three mixes sound like they’ve been sent from 1992 to haunt us!

The clues are in the mix titles. ‘Rave New World Mix’ and ‘Sin Rave Mix’ sound near identical and are a Hi Energy concoction of gutter basslines with 2 Unlimited style ‘rave’ hooks and tinny hi hats. All this with the MC’s vocal cut up over it. ‘Beats & Bass Mix’ is more of the same.

Basically I’m recommending you stay away from this but I hope you’ve learned a little about a new culture and may want to risk pursuing something from the info above, Gracias!!