Nuff X - Arrogance Gets You Everywhere

Hear The Track Here

One of the reasons I've always avoided the electronica field is because I never seem to find much innovation there. To be sure there are the few bright spots but they are numbered in tens. Most electronica IMHO is boring, soulless rubbish (Ed: there goes the fire alarm, everybody run!) and considering the sheer amount of it, to find so few real innovators is a long, involved process. Over the years I have been reviewing at Soundclick I have - obviously - listened to and reviewed thousands of electronica tracks so I should know what I like and what I don't. Nuff X found out in short order what I didn't like about the genre when I first encountered him a year or so ago, and I have to say I am very impressed indeed at the direction he has taken - and conversely what he has done with it.

Now that's what I'M talking about...

Chief amongst the genres bugbears is a sub-genre: breakbeats. Even though I've been told I employ a lot of the sounds in my own work, to me it sounds very different. However, I do have a deep and abiding love for reggae and its more dubby offshoots and for me it's that musical track that Nuff X is pursuing. Although Arrogance couldn't in any way or form be compared to reggae, a lot of the technical tricks it comes up with are most definitely dubby tricks - albeit in a cut-up, shook up world and that is the beauty of what Nuff X is doing.

Nuff X has been having a pretty good year really, he's had a string of recommended or highly recommended from me and that's not bad going at all. This is a very bass heavy track so watch you don't bark your woofers, and I completely understand why. The cut up rhythm is really class, the 'whachoo looking at?' line increasing the effectiveness of the groove - and what a groove it is. To be fair, you would definitely want to be a fan of the wilder shores of electronica, or breakbeats or whatever to really get the full measure of the whack upside the head it gives you, but really I think almost anyone would mutter a quick 'wtf' after starting this. That, I suspect, is the point. I finished my last review of this artist by saying 'deeply disturbing' and I think I've found it's soulmate. Terrific achievement though.

Recommended Electronica.