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Riz MC – Radar Remixes | Single Review

Saturday, January 17th, 2009 | Single Review | No Comments

Last year Crosstown Rebels released an electronica cross pollination track with Riz MC called Radar. To start the New Year Crosstown have come back with the remixes. The first comes from Ashley Beedle of X-Press 2 Fame. His Ill Communication mix starts with the angry, thundering percussion taken from the original. But it rather quickly transforms into a mellow and luscious track as sweeping strings soar to neutralise thundering percussion. The vocals awkwardly sit somewhere in between the two. And when the track fully metamorphoses into its cloud nine form, the vocals seem like they’ve been shoe horned in like a fat Essex girl in tight hot pants. If anything this should be a dub mix. EDIT – according to the press release there is a dub mix for the digital release only. So hopefully that will do the track justice.

The other mix in this package comes as a little venture into the Dubstep world. Sukh Knight uses a synonymous mechanical dubstep beat accented by light reggae/dub notes. Knight then excellently works the vocals in by taking snippets of the chorus, adding a vocoder effect to bring it inline with the mechanical nature of the track. The result is a raw and well worked remix.

Riz MC – Radar Remixes is released on vinyl 26th Jan/digital 9th Feb. Buy other Riz MC tracks from DJDownload

Tracklist:
1. Radar (Ashley Beedle’s ILL communication mix)
2. Radar (Sukh Knight remix)
3. Radar (Ashley Beedle Dub) (DIGITAL ONLY)

Tags: Ashley Beedle, Crosstown Rebels, Riz MC, Sukh Knight, Xpress-2

Riz MC – Radar | Single Review

Thursday, November 13th, 2008 | Music, Single Review | No Comments

Crosstown Rebels goes leftfield on their latest release with Riz MC, combining raw electronica sounds with thoughtful rhymes. He’s being hotly tipped as one of the UK’s bourgeoning talents with a growing list of advocates from the likes of Massive Attack and Nitin Sawhney. And when he’s not doing music he’s having a crack at being an actor for BAFTA winning TV. Pretty talented eh? Well that’s not the end of it.. A friend of a friend tells me he graduated Oxford with a first and had the pick of all the top finance jobs in the city earning crazy money.

But rather than go down the disgustingly rich route, Riz MC decided to follow the path of what he loves. His effort for Crosstown Rebels is a two track effort. First is Radar, a raw electronic thudding track which subtly supports the pacey lyrics. Heavily distorted static noises and striking electronic sounds denote verses, choruses and words adding a hidden level of emphasis and oomph. The second effort People Like People has a heavy breakbeat come Baltimore breaks feel, think M.I.A but more electronic. This is undisputedly raw output for the Crosstown Rebels.

So not to make the release to out there for Crosstown fans, Loco Dice is called in to completely strip the track down. Muted beats flutter with tight percussion as Mr Dice twists Riz MC’s vocals in to a garbled sample. It’s such a contrast to the original, but that definitely gives it big crossover potential for the house and techno fans.

Tags: Crosstown Rebels, Loco Dice, Massive Attack, Riz MC