AIM – The Birchwood EP – 2008 – EP review
TRACKS: Birchwood – Corliss Avenue – Before feat. Q n C - Northwest
SOUNDBITE: "The duo dynamic, you knew us from before/ Did the midnight sessions on tour"
RATING: 3/5
After two fairly successful albums following the three-pronged approach of dark jazz-inflected breakbeat instrumentals, moody breakbeats with folksy female vocals and the occasional collaboration with a (US) rapper, Aim ditched the rapper collaborations for last LP Flight 602. Personally I’d say that was a move roughly equal to lining up a shotgun with your foot, taking careful aim (snigger) and pulling the trigger. The rapper collabs were always his best stuff. Or maybe there were just no old-schoolers for hire the other year. Now, while this EP is named after and features the predictable jazzy breaks of album track Birchwood and the slightly less predictable (but still jazzy) non-album track (Corliss Avenue North) it also features an edgy, far beefier Gripper remix of LP track Northwest which improves on the original by not being jazzy (and I mean in the sense that Sade was jazzy) at all. And then there is Before. Now I hate to straitjacket a man but sometimes you just have to give the punters what they want and what they want is an Aim beat with Q-Ball and Curt Cazal lazily trading a rhyme over a orchestral soul horn loop about how “Everything was whips and chains” back in the day. Genius. Out now.
RELATED LINKS
Listen to Aim – Birchwood EP
Aim - myspace
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1 comment:
You're absolutely right mate, Aim is dope and Aim + Q'n'C = straight genius, ya get me?
And that's coming from me with my hardline "fuck retro rap" policy :-)
I may have to cop this although at the mo I am a bit skint so I may just jack the tracks offa limewire or summat.
(Note to RIAA... I would never do that. Ha ha.)
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