Blackdown: LDN011 Grievous Angel. (check this link for audio and full details)

Two big tunes from my man Paul Meme coming out on Blackdown’s seminal Keysound label.

Side A is a remix of Naphta’s Soundclash from the wicked “Long Time Burning” album.

Flip is more abstract wonky business.

Promo sounds fat as you like. Check.

Clean living in difficult circumstances.

See also this great new blog by a sarf London voodoo practitioner, who has some interesting things to say about Paul’s Devotional Dubz label.

Voodoo and Santeria aren’t discussed that much in my end of the afro-futurist neighbourhood, I guess because they are not exactly de rigeur for black Muslims or Rastafarians. Certainly the Obeah man (or sorceror) comes in for some proper stick in reggae.

So equally interesting to get the above t-shirt from grime crew Roll Deep as one of my birthday presents recently…

I’m far too rationalist these days to believe in this stuff, or even to believe that believing in it would serve any useful function for me personally. But it is undoubtedly an interesting social phenomenon (his says in his dusty library, peering over some specs like Professor Yaffle). Certainly afro-centric magick has a history of spooking the fuck out of colonial types and so can be seen as a slightly bizarre part of the resistance against slavery.

Plus Lady Erzulie Freda Dahomey sounds pretty awesome and you can’t argue with a guy who follows up his erudite musings with this:

I’ve been a bit at odds with the dubstep scene myself ever since I encountered difficulty getting into FWD cos I was wearing a pale grey suit with an early 60s cut, which was at odds with their unofficial dress code of scruffy bastard in a washed out grey hoodie. Fortunately, retro tailoring won out over shit Gap t-shirts and combats, as it always will, and they let me in anyway.