Sixtoo - Chewing On Glass and Other Miracle Cures
Trip hop. A term no-one (including the artists) liked even when it was first
attached to the appropriate scenesters back in the early 90's. Yet it's a term
that we all know what it means - so sod it lets just drop it into this review at
the start and get it over and done with. Downtempo in mood, rich
instrumentation, hip hop beats, non-thug imagery, minimal vocal action. 2004 has
seen this style well and truly back in the fore with Ninjatunes own Blockhead,
Lex's DJ Signify to name but two of the best in recent times.
And so to Canada's Sixtoo. Apparently the man has been around and his earlier
stuff is now of ebay legend. Fear not though, as this album is a general
Ninjatune release and so will be available to all. Indeed, all fans of DJ
shadow, film noir, and even post rock should indeed grab this strangely fine
album.
After making 4 months of beats and sounds, Sixtoo decided that the initial
recordings were too be dumped and restarted when he received a Rhodes piano for
his 29th birthday from his girlfriend (dontcha just love fine details like this
!) and decided to start all over again with a dark combination of real
guitar/bass/drums instrumentation and scratchy samples, but avoiding all aspects
of computer effects. Subsequently, the sound is very live and direct, in an
unsettling way.
The mood is the pre-requisite of mean and moody beats and few vocals, and when
they do appear the vocals are in the anticon style – slightly distorted and
sinister sounding. So over the course of the hour you will feel your life is
being soundtracked by the ultimate mood pieces, with the Boxcutter Emporium
being a highlight, its various themes, spy movie drama feel, echoed distant
electric piano adding to the excellence. The one area of concern is the track
featuring Sixtoo hero Damon Suzuki from Can, the vocals are improvised and damn
it shows over the hard-to-take nine minutes.
The album flows and grows and takes the listener on a journey with no real
obvious direction. There are no feel-happy party tracks, there is no narrative a
la Buck 65 with whom the grooves share a certain connection, but even so, I
still found the album to be a fine addition to the pile of instrumental hip hop
records that I find myself returning to on a more frequent basis.
To complete the package Sixtoo has provided a nice full rundown on how the
tracks were made in the exhaustive sleevenotes, the noisetoys used and so on,
the weather, everything, lovely stuff.