Some kind of peak for jungle music
the ruff and the smooth, frenzy and elegance
"big up all ghetto youth" versus silky wafting sounds like the EZ-listening that makes Harry Flowers say "turn it up, I like that tune"
jazzual menace, dubby flickers, "Think" palsy, soundtrackism
future + retro
somewhere between Size + Die "11.55" and Kruder & Dorfmeister
I don't know much at all about Hidden Agenda, but I recently saw this Melody Maker mini-feature go up at Nothingelseon
From Newcastle, of course. Gateshead, to be precise.
The "cutting up grooves" rather than "cutting up breaks' bit is interesting.
"Is It Love?" came out in mid-1995
There was another year or so of great things - "Metropolis", the first run of No U Turn, the Full Cycle camp - and then something broke decisively
Seemed like everything became
ruff and nothing but (jump-up)
or
smooth and nothing but (liquid funk)
or
anxious and itchy with sci-fi technicality (neuro)
tracks that had "the full circumference" within them - the ruff, the smooth, the futuroid, the technical, the dark - all within that one track - became vanishingly rare
As for Hidden Agenda... never quite taken by anything else they did, to the same extent anyway.
Always felt like they were one of the outfits who should have done a proper album.
Actually, checking, it appears they did. In 2000. With the wry title Whatever Happened To... that seems to acknowledge having missed their moment, taken too bleedin' long
Unless it's a Tynesiders nod to this beloved Britcom
"the only thing to look forward to / the past"
Ah well, certainly they liked to play up the Tyneside thing - naming a track after Get Carter, after all
