by SCOTT C

So here I am in London a whole week already, and I still have yet to eat a bacon-buttie. This English breakfast delight can be found in your finest of greasy spoons, and consists of a heaping mound of bacon strips stuffed delicately between two (or three) pieces of white bread, usually accompanied by some HP sauce.

Although I haven't had much luck finding this artery-hardening treat, I was able to get my ass to a truly heart-pounding event last Sunday night, when we lucked into the launch party for the new 4Hero Remixed double LP at a little event in Shoreditch called Co-Op.

Co-Op is considered the home of West London's broken beat and future jazz heavy hitters, with producer/DJs like I.G. Culture, Dego, Demus, Kaidi Tatham and Marc Mac regularly throwing down "big choons" in the modest club setting of Plastic People. Broken beats meaning that instead of a regular pattern, the beat is syncopated and shuffled with strong funk and soul-jazz influences. A lot of the music also borrows heavily from dancehall, Afro-beat and techno, all of which are isolated or combined, making the largely used term broken beat a loose one at best.

Although this was something that I had planned to check out, I had no idea that the place was going to be rammed with people who not only knew and sung the words to everything, but also hummed along to just about all of the instrumental tunes as well. Imagine 300 people singing the lazy "da-daaa-da-daaa" from Jay Dee's "Rico Suave Bossa Nova" if you can, not to mention that 95 per cent of the place was sweating on the dancefloor, just like me. At one point, I was even singled out by an unnamed man on the mic, who promptly handed me a 4Hero disc and a T-shirt, claiming he could "respect the moves." Finally, some respect on the dancefloor, seen? Some "bloke" with cornrows ambushed me, thinking I was an old "grammar school mate," and even stuck around to dance for an hour even though I clearly wasn't the guy. Music went from big drums and sonic stutter-steps to soulful neckbreakers for the slow-moving heads, and even some grime for the yout' dem. I'm not sure if you could go anywhere else in London and hear the same insane mix of bruk-beat dubplates, CD-Rs and exclusives alongside tried and true classics, all in the same night. Easily one of the best night I've had in years, and I strongly recommend it to anyone planning to be in London who has a hankering for that left-field bruk style.

Seven reasons Goya's been good to me:
1. Various King Britt Presents Black to the Future (Five Six Media)
2. Simbad "Peaktime" (Earth Projects)
3. Colonel Red "Gimme That Feelin" (People)
4. Da One Away "Re-Hash the Junk" (Mainsqueeze)
5. JB Rose "It's Time" (Bitasweet)
6. Context "If I Had a Band" (Sonny B)
7. New Sector Movements Turn It Up (Virgin UK)

Back in black… fathead@videotron.ca

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