Microdisney- Singer’s Hampstead Home

From 1988’s 39 Minutes LP, which sadly was their last, on which they foresaw a slippery slide into commercialism and vapidity. Cathal Coughlan (soon to be lead singer of the much more vitriolic pope baiting Fatima Mansions) sings just the right side of a pisstake of a lazy fat blank verse singing prick while the music has that classic crisp modern 80s production that you found on Scritti Politti or Aztec Camera album tracks. Geniuses at work from Hello Rascals to here.

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Raekwon- Ice Cream (Instrumental)

A classic RZA beat (remember those days when you could actually say that?) from Raekwon’s Only Built 4 Cuban Linx… which like much hip-hop on inspection is just a big looped piece of smaller loops. But much more the sum of its parts the track shifts blocks of sound to the foreground while you aurally explore the background layers.

Sampled vinyl detritus provides a barely perceptible off kilter beat under RZA’s standard rhythm pattern while that shaky melody (what it is a harp or a piano? Both?) that you never tire of rolls around the rims of the track like a pacing psychopath. Unfortunately whilst this is labeled an instrumental it still contains Method Man’s silly ‘ode to the ladies’ soliloquy wrapping up the song.

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Young Tiger- I Was There (At The Coronation)

Despite the weirdness of a young Trinidadian man singing a happy song about the coronation of a Queen of an Empire that did them a lot more harm than good, this is resolutely cheery. Speaking as someone who wouldn’t bat an eye if the whole rotten British monarchy were shipped out to work on a shit shovelling farm I don’t enjoy doing a cross between a skank and the Charleston every time I hear this track.

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