- Music
- 20 Mar 01
Last year's A Little Bit Of Something proved to be a sadly neglected summer classic, lost in the grey noise of Britneyism but lovingly cherished by many here in HP Towers.
Determined to raise his own stakes in the grand ol' game of funk-whist, Tommy boy has brought San Francisco's DJ Gadget and a crate of his rarest cuts to the table and comes up smelling of aces.
A deft translation of 'hoy yen ass'n' is someone else's job, but a roughly phonetic anglicism of 'haul yo' ass' will do fine here - Gadget and Guerrero have leaned heavily on the low end for maximum gritty hip-hop thrills. '1 Ton Souperman', in common with many of the tracks here, splices in the background sounds of a good party in full swing, so rest assured that any gathering will garner instant ambience with this on the PA. Come to that, 'Out The Village' brings a chorus of your entirely off-beat pissed mates into the mix, so you really don't need to invite anyone
Indeed, Hoy Yen Ass'n has the feel of a drunken collaboration that chance and serendipity decreed would be a joy to listen to - Gadget's scratches and understated, rough-edged production play perfectly off Guerrero's quietly insistent guitar lines.
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Tracks like 'Deep Sleep' and '2 Days Later' call to mind UNKLE's drowsy brand of instrumental hip-hop, and 'Comme Disait Papi' laces that mix with some fine mogadon gallic MC'ing courtesy of Selavie. 'Cold' stands out as a piece of piano-led drunken fear that Tom Waits would be glad to call his own.
In a world where all the difficult beats have been rounded off for easy consumption, it's refreshing to hear a messy, beautiful clutch of songs like these. Hoy Yen Ass'n, like the man said.