Bullet - The Hanged Man (DC Recordings)

The Hanged Man is a must for the sort of people who were into Trunk Records' Battle Of Bosworth remix album and Bungalow's recent reissue of the Peter-Thomas-Sound-Orchester's Space Patrol soundtrack. It's what the people at DC call a "connoisseur special". And what I call a very obscure - but ultimately supercool - rerelease of a 1975 Yorkshire TV thriller soundtrack. If this doesn't put you off then you're info a musical treat of rare grooves and street funk. Stuff that's appearing for the first time on CD having already been sampled by the likes of Jurassic 5 and the Street Smartz.

Although DC first got into the Hanged Man soundtrack from a second hand version they'd found for 20p, copies have been selling between US aficionados for upwards of $300 for some years. The opening theme portrays the Hanged Man exactly as he should be - Shaft in Yorkshire! With 'GBH', 'The Heist' and 'Blue Panther' you have the soundtrack to an imaginary visit from Huggy Bear into the wold of The Sweeny. Memories are made of this. 9/10


This review also published in: DJ magazine

Esthero - Breath From Another (Columbia)

In which 19-year old singer Esthero doubles up with fellow Canadian, producer Martin McKinney for eleven tracks that set out to combine just about every current style of dance music into one ever-evolving soup. Despite this description, Breath From Another is not some cheesy world-beat voyage, but more a short-wave surf into credible X Files territory. The title track is as poppy as they come, elsewhere (on 'Heaven Sent' and others), the pre-millenium female vocalist and male beat junky combination is highly Portishead and lightly Smoke City. More precisely, elements from Esthero are uncannily similar to Bristol's Easter Island art pop duo.

Can sonic Bond extravagances really combine with drum and bass and jazz samples to make a coherent full-length album? Well, ask Bjork for the answer to that one. A fine debut, Esthero lack the crazy edge of an equally mixed-up act like Koop, but come out sounding equally accomplished. 7/10


This review also published in: DJ magazine