Razor X Productions – Killing Sound (Rephlex double LP)

“Made in Babylon”

Razor X was the label for the original collaborations between Kevin Martin (The Bug) and the Rootsman (UK veteran reggae producer and ex-member of Iration Steppas sound – see also the post below). These productions leaked out on very limited 7″ over a few years and laid down the blueprint for The Bug’s subsequent trajectory…

This compilation has been a long time coming, and has been much anticipated by the thousands of people who bought Pressure. Killing Sound is a an all-out assault compared to Pressure’s rollercoaster ride of peaks and troughs.

The first track is “Killer”, the original Razor X opening barrage, but with Warrior Queen on vocal duties instead of the unavailable He-Man. Can Warrior overtake the original vocal? Amazingly, she can – with some serious attitude and menace. “Killer – sleep with a BIGGER machine under mi pillow…”.[…] “Gun don’t play when it come to intruder” completely flips the original meaning of the tune – dancehall machismo becomes female self-defence?

Many of the tracks on the album come complete with Versions and it sounds to these ears like the Killer riddim has been instensified for 06. In fact it’s been butchered, but I mean that in a good way – hacked about by an expert knifeman, with what little fat remaining on the carcass removed with surgical precision.

2nd track is “WWW”. That “Mexican is a badman” is probably beyond dispute. Has it really been five years since I first heard this? It still sounds urgent – perhaps previously it sounded like the future, whereas in 2006 it sounds like RIGHT NOW. Admirable brutality. The version reduces the vocal to psychopathic monosylablic utterances in a wasteland of jackhammer raggage.

Mexican steps up again for “(Bun a fire pon the) Child Molestor”, a new tune which is not for the fainthearted. The version spaces the tune out into vigilantism through a skunked out haze. An outstandingly effective combination of violent vocals over a relatively (!) laid back riddim.

Cutty Ranks might be trouble in the studio, but “Boom Boom Claat” sounds like a war just started, and his delivery requires no apologies.

“[…]It seems like them haunted
Cross mi path and me kill them to rahtid
It seems like them fi get me wanted
Leave them family broken hearted”

If Paul was here, he’d was say it sounded like SWANS. Or course it doesn’t sound like SWANS at all, except in his head, but there is a shared minimal physicality which is wickedly energising.

Daddy Freddy’s “Imitator” concerns people who rip off his style. The onetime “fastest MC in the world” has some innovative solutions to copyright disputes. They involve your face.

El Feco hails from Philly (but was born in JA). His “Yard Man” features some great interplay between breakcore amens and moments of quiet which are almost acapella. I can see this going down a storm at more discerning dancefloors like Sick & Twisted.

“Problem (Version)” doesn’t come with a vocal counterpart. Something to look forward to? This seems to be Razor X at its slinkiest.

Killing Sound: Another essential for your sonic armoury.

Available in good record shops everywhere. (LP = 15 tracks, CD = 20, including more versions. But you want the vinyl, don’t you?)