Wednesday, June 13, 2007  3:01 pm 

Draw for the ting in the Tesco’s bag, n’ I’ll make your silver moon suit look like a Japanese flag

So when making the 20JFG Italo mix earlier this year, Genuine Guy asked the question, “Why don’t more hip-hop artists sample Italo Disco?“. He has a good point. Some of them do it already in their own special way: “Me & U” by Cassie rocks the Italo sensibilities with every new synth line heralding the sunrise on vast glacial planets in distant undiscovered solar systems. “Umbrella” by Rihanna features dramatic slow-mo Italian discotheque basslines that rumble across space like white hot sheets of pure laser. Amerie sneaks close to the Italo core by releasing a new LP that sounds like Beyonce channeling Vanity 6, produced by 8O’s Shakatak with the all conquering Prince watching from the side lines, arching an approving eyebrow in favour.

So yeah, the girls are doing it, but not so much the guys. Timbaland could go down that road, but enrolling Fall Out Boy and The Hives into album sessions throws him way off. The next Justin Timberlake LP will apparently sound like The Rapture, so maybe he’s slowly catching up. Clipse’s “Mr. Me Too” was slowed down grime riddims shifting through the black sands of Hell, which is where we get really excited.

Grime producers/artists/MC’s are closing in on Italo as a main influence, whether they like it or not. Grime is the most alpha male music genre out there; its homophobic, sexist, ultra-violent and is at times so brutally honest about the blood soaked circles that its creators move in that it makes Grindhouse movies look like Tom & Jerry. So its weird that you can hear gay space disco sounds in amongst the sampled gunshots.

But we dig forward thinkers, and grime is packed full of them. Two that we love are Wiley and JME, two renegade princes that are making the most interesting stuff in a genre thats been pronounced dead more times in the last year than Keith Richards in his whole life.

Wiley - Grim (feat. JME & Ears)

“Grim” is great, don’t get us wrong, but it would sound killer if maybe it tore out the synthesised strings from “Supernature” by Cerrone and chopped them into a stuttered rhythm section that would fit nicely inbetween the bass throbs and barked vocals. Chuck in some laser phasers through the chorus and you have Italo-Grime perfection.

JME has an obsession for synths that makes certain members of 20JFG weak at the knees and scramble desperately to obtain the latest Boy Better Know mixtape mixtape (you have to be quick though) like their very lives depended on it.

JME - Shutup and Dance

Plastician produces this Knight-Rider kitt-car of a track, he’s just remixed “Someday” The Black Ghosts and turned it into a war anthem for a cyborg race from the future that trudges through the ashes of destroyed Earth while it plays over soundsystems from tanks. There is so much JME material that we could write about, but this is one of the best, with transforming robot percussion and metallic hi-hats. That bass rolls around like super fast titanium cobras and everything just sounds tense, dangerous and malevolent.

Wheres the Italo reference, you ask? Well, its the darker instrumental stuff from Hipnosis, Moonbase, Yellow Power and even Jan Hammer that courses through “Shutup & Dance’s” robotic veins.

For more dubstep and grime flecked with Italo, check out Skepta, Jammer’s instrumental tracks and Grime Reaper’s productions.

labels >> grime, italo