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Team Shadetek
Musicalbear's Vernon Crane finds out if NYC's Team Shadetek have grown out of making beats out of brillo pads.
By Vernon Crane
Team Shadetek are a bit wary about being featured in Musicalbear’s hallowed pages again. The last time they were in here it transpires the Bear gave them a bit of mauling and they’re still, understandably, peeved.
Part of the problem seemed to stem from the fact that the first thing most people heard by them, the ep Burnerism, came out on Warp, allied to the fact, at least this is my take on it, that Burnerism a super-abrasive hip hop/noise hybrid of scouring, high-impact, high-density boombox funk, was genuinely ahead of its time, and has subsequently been somewhat “slept on.” American proto-grime anyone? Aphex may have played a piece of sandpaper, Shadetek made beats out of brillo-pads.
First up then, we should probably address the problem of old wounds. How does Sozer feels about that record’s inception/reception in general?
“A lot of it came out of the way some people feel about Warp,” he explains “which is placing them up on this pedestal and being obsessed. The fact that we are new young artists coming out on a label that a lot of people want to be down with and that has released some important shit definitely places us under more pressure and scrutiny than if we had released it on our own label or on Sound Ink or something. One reviewer even said, to paraphrase 'I wouldn’t be dissing this if it wasn't on Warp', which pissed me off.”
Aha! Fair enough. Spleen vented we move quickly on.
Shadetek, (Sozer and partner Zack) have been busy lately: remixing, most notably an insanely, foot-itchingly funky, stripped-down take on the track Dem Nuh Know Me for Kid 606’s superlative Shockout label: mixing brilliant outernationalist endeavours like Radio Wsht (Violent Turd) and move with the bass and hooking up with some of the UK‘s grimy-est purveyors of road-running beats for their “Bangers and Mash” club night in NYC.
There still seems to be a lot of looking down on grime among the “discerning” in the UK, so it seems odd that Shadetek have embraced it so wholeheartedly.
“Man, the British condescension towards grime is just wild to me” Sozer tells me. “We love the grime stuff, to us it really expresses a lot of the things we've been trying to bring together in our own shadetek sound for years. It's a place where rave sounds, Jamaican sound culture, NY hiphop and crunk all meet and collide and there's just this amazing energy, productivity and rapid innovation going on, it's really exciting. You've got Jammer, who's just amazing, him and Lewy White and Bigga Man from his Jahmek The World crew are really doing it. There's a few other guys really standing out: Wonder is big, Terra Danjah has a real unique thing, Mondie, Dexplicit, Davinche, Jon E Cash.”
Apparently NYC loves grime, the nights “have been crazy, way more successful than we had anticipated.”
All of which leads us onto Shadetek’s Anglophilia in general; there’s the championing of grime, the killer mixes they’ve been doing for Resonance FM’s brilliant Rhythm Incursions, the links with Warp. What’s the deal there? I thought Americans were supposed to be all introverted and parochial?
“Basically they (Rhythm Incursions) hollered at us about doing something for the show when sheen and I were in London. as far as being Anglophile there's definitely some truth to that, basically we just got tapped into the whole British rave thing with jungle and hardcore, that was offering us something new that we weren't getting from American music, and we've just stayed keeping up on it since. One thing as well is that my mom is British, so I had occasion to go over there now and again to see my grandma in Yorkshire and would soak shit up, go over to Manchester and buy records and meet people etc.”
If Shadetek have been busy, by all accounts they’re about to be busier. Not only do they have new sites and blogs up, running and pending for the whole Shadetek family (the Change Agent crew, including artist Swoon who did the beautiful sleeve art for Burnerism) and a new album imminent on Sound Ink, but the Shadetek label is also due to release a skipful of wild new beats. The last question has to be what one of the busiest guys in Anglo-American rhythmic cross pollonisation is feeling right now and releasing in the near future. Exhausted, head spinning I’ll bow out and. As it should be, let the artist have the last word. Take it away Sozer.
“There's Drop The Lime, he's a monster. His whole twist on the breakcore thing is great, he's also part of our Bangers and Mash DJ crew. On Shadetek records we've got two new artists we're fucking with, a kid called Atki2 from England who's doing grimy breakcore-ish riddims with this girl Renee rapping over them and our boy Zestrock! from Middletown NY, now based in the Bronx who's a rapper and producer making melodic dissonant hiphop with a lot of wierd beats. Both of them have 12" EPs coming soon and Zesto is working on his album which will drop on Shadetek records as well. We're also dropping the next EP in the series we started with The Girls EP which is another four-track 12" with 4 different artists called The Dudes EP. That's got tracks from Xing n Fox feat. Tame One, Para One feat. TTC and Tes, as well as tracks from Atki2 and Zesto. Also coming up is me and my lady DJ Sheen's mixtape Heavy Meckle, which is a grime tape with vocals and hosting by Ears and Jammer plus some dubs and riddims from his Jahmek The World label and crew.”
And like that…. he’s gone!
Part of the problem seemed to stem from the fact that the first thing most people heard by them, the ep Burnerism, came out on Warp, allied to the fact, at least this is my take on it, that Burnerism a super-abrasive hip hop/noise hybrid of scouring, high-impact, high-density boombox funk, was genuinely ahead of its time, and has subsequently been somewhat “slept on.” American proto-grime anyone? Aphex may have played a piece of sandpaper, Shadetek made beats out of brillo-pads.
First up then, we should probably address the problem of old wounds. How does Sozer feels about that record’s inception/reception in general?
“A lot of it came out of the way some people feel about Warp,” he explains “which is placing them up on this pedestal and being obsessed. The fact that we are new young artists coming out on a label that a lot of people want to be down with and that has released some important shit definitely places us under more pressure and scrutiny than if we had released it on our own label or on Sound Ink or something. One reviewer even said, to paraphrase 'I wouldn’t be dissing this if it wasn't on Warp', which pissed me off.”
Aha! Fair enough. Spleen vented we move quickly on.
Shadetek, (Sozer and partner Zack) have been busy lately: remixing, most notably an insanely, foot-itchingly funky, stripped-down take on the track Dem Nuh Know Me for Kid 606’s superlative Shockout label: mixing brilliant outernationalist endeavours like Radio Wsht (Violent Turd) and move with the bass and hooking up with some of the UK‘s grimy-est purveyors of road-running beats for their “Bangers and Mash” club night in NYC.
There still seems to be a lot of looking down on grime among the “discerning” in the UK, so it seems odd that Shadetek have embraced it so wholeheartedly.
“Man, the British condescension towards grime is just wild to me” Sozer tells me. “We love the grime stuff, to us it really expresses a lot of the things we've been trying to bring together in our own shadetek sound for years. It's a place where rave sounds, Jamaican sound culture, NY hiphop and crunk all meet and collide and there's just this amazing energy, productivity and rapid innovation going on, it's really exciting. You've got Jammer, who's just amazing, him and Lewy White and Bigga Man from his Jahmek The World crew are really doing it. There's a few other guys really standing out: Wonder is big, Terra Danjah has a real unique thing, Mondie, Dexplicit, Davinche, Jon E Cash.”
Apparently NYC loves grime, the nights “have been crazy, way more successful than we had anticipated.”
All of which leads us onto Shadetek’s Anglophilia in general; there’s the championing of grime, the killer mixes they’ve been doing for Resonance FM’s brilliant Rhythm Incursions, the links with Warp. What’s the deal there? I thought Americans were supposed to be all introverted and parochial?
“Basically they (Rhythm Incursions) hollered at us about doing something for the show when sheen and I were in London. as far as being Anglophile there's definitely some truth to that, basically we just got tapped into the whole British rave thing with jungle and hardcore, that was offering us something new that we weren't getting from American music, and we've just stayed keeping up on it since. One thing as well is that my mom is British, so I had occasion to go over there now and again to see my grandma in Yorkshire and would soak shit up, go over to Manchester and buy records and meet people etc.”
If Shadetek have been busy, by all accounts they’re about to be busier. Not only do they have new sites and blogs up, running and pending for the whole Shadetek family (the Change Agent crew, including artist Swoon who did the beautiful sleeve art for Burnerism) and a new album imminent on Sound Ink, but the Shadetek label is also due to release a skipful of wild new beats. The last question has to be what one of the busiest guys in Anglo-American rhythmic cross pollonisation is feeling right now and releasing in the near future. Exhausted, head spinning I’ll bow out and. As it should be, let the artist have the last word. Take it away Sozer.
“There's Drop The Lime, he's a monster. His whole twist on the breakcore thing is great, he's also part of our Bangers and Mash DJ crew. On Shadetek records we've got two new artists we're fucking with, a kid called Atki2 from England who's doing grimy breakcore-ish riddims with this girl Renee rapping over them and our boy Zestrock! from Middletown NY, now based in the Bronx who's a rapper and producer making melodic dissonant hiphop with a lot of wierd beats. Both of them have 12" EPs coming soon and Zesto is working on his album which will drop on Shadetek records as well. We're also dropping the next EP in the series we started with The Girls EP which is another four-track 12" with 4 different artists called The Dudes EP. That's got tracks from Xing n Fox feat. Tame One, Para One feat. TTC and Tes, as well as tracks from Atki2 and Zesto. Also coming up is me and my lady DJ Sheen's mixtape Heavy Meckle, which is a grime tape with vocals and hosting by Ears and Jammer plus some dubs and riddims from his Jahmek The World label and crew.”
And like that…. he’s gone!
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