Charlie A - Épique

Hear The Track Here

Considering that I spend my life avoiding anything that smacks of either film soundtrack or videogame soundtrack, I don't do too badly and have even found a few good artists on Soundclick that can manage to overcome my mountain of predjudice against the genre. Charlie Armour (for it is he) is definitely one of them, establishing that with a string of recommendations and one Must Have from me for Broken China (January 2007). Épique, as you may have gathered, is a posh word. You can tell by the little curly hat the E is wearing. It's also French in origin and considering the difficulties I get myself into with plain English, I think it would be best if I stopped talking about the title and let you sort it out for yourself.

Chas got himself a mate to help on this one, the vocalist is Allen Brooks (aka gamma raye) and it's billed as Experimental Electronica and that's a fair comment, guv. It would kinda miss the whole Charlie A point though because where he really excels is when he is creating his brand of classical music and (on first listening anyway) a lot of that impact gets lost but get sufficiently far enough into the track and it's plain to see who is conducting this particular orchestral oddity. Charlie has his own musical signature and a couple of plays shows his dabs (Ed: dabs=slang for fingerprints) all over this excellent track.

gamma raye supplies a kind of rap/speak style and very effective it is too, although I personally could have done with the volume level being just a tad higher in the mix because the words are real difficult to decipher. So, yes, it is experimental and it is electronic (the rap section kicks ass for example) but more than anything else it's Charlie A welded seamlessly to a block rocking beat and a wailer out front shouting the odds. As such, the first time you hear it it may not hit you, but I'd be more than willing to bet that the second time would truss you up quicker than you could say Festive Turkey.

Great blend of beats, vocals and bombastic classical influences. MUST HAVE.