prince fatty

while i get quite a bit of new music to listen to, i have to admit there are times i become incredibly selfish and just ignore the to review pile and revisit old friends for days on end to recharge my jaded ears.

one such period was last week when having ireallylovemusic hq to myself, i suddenly had the urge to dig into my on-u sound system archive and just let adrian sherwood’s dubbed up excess echo around the house while i pretended to be doing necessary chores, the experience was truly glorious and very needed.

so, of course this then lead me to dig around for details on new adrian sherwood related product, which if you have followed the on-up sound story is never an easy one due to so many broken promises over the years (admittedly mostly due to factors external to the actual label - eg. the collapse of efa the german setup that was on course to reissue the complete catalogue).

however, rather then me getting into all that side of life, i recently spotted an album, survival of the fattest by prince fatty, with some great cover art and from the description appeared to be exactly what the doctor ordered.

first up, little roy drops his sweet vocals on a couple of the tracks, curious and don’t give up, then there is the appearance of mutant hi-fi on the album closer, who happened to provide one of the highlights of the last on-u records compilation, chainstore massacre.

so i bought it. yes dear reader, i bought it. no myspace checking, no illicit actions via file sharing, and not even a ‘can i please ..‘ begging email.

for not only does the cd have a wonderful easy on the ear summer reggae vibe (old school trojan records style - not modern digital dancehall stuff), but the credits reveals quite a bit more of a connection with on-u as style dub syndicate scott, and carlton 2 badcard/bubblers ogilvie are all over the credits, and the music is just lovely. not as excessively dubbed up and distorted as the other gang in town, but a lot more relaxed and warm. there is a sense that the music has been made using traditional methods as opposed to getting into all the pro-tools world, so over the 12 tracks the listener is treated to a little rock steady here, some lovers rock there, a chunk of dj toasting and without messing about, its all rather wonderful.

as an extra note : i’m not sure if this album has been given an official release, as the cd label has ‘for promotional use - not for resale’ imprinted on it, so if you spot it, do the decent thing, and give this fine record a decent home.