SEEKERS INTERNATIONAL / JUWANSTOCKTON - KINTSUGI SOUL STEPPERS
RIDDIM CHANGO
Hip Hop / Drum n Bass / BreaksNew Vinyl LP / 23 EUR / Staff Picks
Midas touch dubbers SKRS introduce mutual soul Juwanstockton on a killer batch of dancehall mutations gilded with ‘80s Japanese ambient synth voices for Hiroshi Takahura & DJ 1TA-RAW’s Riddim Chango.
100% crucial for anyone feeling Actress & Lukid’s Thriller joints or ruggedest knocks by Madlib, Michael J. Blood or Madteo; the ‘Kintsugi Soul Steppers’ session throws down a highly satisfying half hour of chopped-up soul food stitched together with hot brass by Manila Dread Horns and a fine glaze of FM synths hinting at the dreaminess of ‘80s Japanese electronics.
As ever with SKRS gear, a magick lies in their discreet edits and is quite literally alluded to in the title’s reference to “Kintsugi”; the Japanese art of putting broken pottery pieces back together with gold. It’s an ideal metaphor for the trio, neatly encapsulating their brand of edit mischief and craft as they flit twinkle-toed from the MPC electro-dub-soul dexterities of ‘AKAI Telecom’ to proper vintage-sounding West London broken beat tekkerz on ‘Bruk Encounter’ and ‘Riddim Changes pt. 1 & 2’, via the wickedly loosey-goosey knees-up ’Shinjuku Skanking’, and strobing chord filleting of ‘Wind Rider’ to a sort of dubstep soul redolent of Silkie in ‘Mercury Rising’.