SOBER & DRIBBLA: The Broken Plan (2007) EP review
Tracks: Cables/ Hooks/ Birth Pills/ Fire!/ Shut Up/ Transplant
Soundbite: /You stay nostalgic but I'm looking forward/ We do this cause we're bored!/
Rating: 4/5
It squelches, it bleeps, it rocks robot beats...it's the new Sober & Dribbla EP The Broken Plan! Although their names might suggest (at least according to my mate) that they're the two of the seven dwarfs who went into rehab, unsurprisingly, this isn't actually the case. The Bristol-based duo (DJ/Producer and MC respectively) generate hip-hop that sounds like it was made by the last human survivors of a colony compromised by chest-bursting aliens. Clearly there is somewhat of a debt to early Def Jux in the synth stabs and washes and I don't think the boys would either deny this or be unhappy about it. Dribbla's tight delivery of occasionally quite surreal lyrics provides an appropriate counterpoint to the sci-fi sound and it is also worth emphasising that they keep these beats simpler, less cluttered and way more fluid than El 'This'll do your head in' Producto is famed - or dreaded (depending on your point of view) for. This is actually the third solid Bristol hip-hop EP (all very different) that I've heard in three months - and to think I'd started to despair about the dire state of the music in UK hip-hop! If anything it seems to suggest there's something in the water (Scrumpy probably - Health & Safety Ed.) and proves that Britain's 'largest village' continues to be a fertile breeding ground for good music. Hooks warrants its name for the urgent bassline alone and Fire! is the track to hear if you want a quick sense of the feel of the EP and definitely the one DJs will be looking at to get feet moving with it's crashing snare/hi-hat combined assault. Released January '07. Chek!
Listen to Sober & Dribbla The Broken Plan EP
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