Propping Up The Bar With A Crafty Fag
“I’ll have a Gimlet please”
Radio Music / Council Pop / Reality Raps / Acne Instrumentals
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Continuing the ongoing saga of turning the Invisible Spies back-catalgue digikal, we’re pleased to let loose a series of Ackers releases from the Council Pop era of rhyming-verbal-diarrea. Big up Req One on the drum-computer and the entire Invisible Spies massive. Word.
RADIO MUSIC / HOOLIGAN 78 – June 2003
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“Jiggyness on a budget if ever we heard of it” – Hip-Hop Connection
“Kid comes through with an eccentric and lo-fi take on UK hardcore” -Muzik
“This man knows why all your friends are criminals now and he can definitely get you a shooter if you want one. Genius” – DJ Magazine
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COUNCIL POP – August 2003
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“A benchmark for UK hip-hop and come to that, for the representation of UK culture in popular music” **** – Muzik
“A brutally concise wreckage. Beautifully measured, penetrative, incisive music. Genius”
- DJ Magazine
“This album offers an alternative to the dirge. You definitely need to hear it” – ATM
“Top quality without the bling” – Breaking Point
“Ceaselessly inventive” **** – Mojo
“A short, sharp blow-to-the-windpipe of an album” **** – Big Issue
“Riotously funny” – Vice Magazine
“He’s come up with a real dirty classic. Who else would dare rhyme hamlet with Russ Abbot?”
***** – Knowledge
“Welcome evidence of authentic Brit-hop life outside he wafer-thin offerings of the garage ghetto, with no blings attached” – Word
“He’s good, he’s very good. I bet he’s even good at darts” – Hip Hop Connection
“Definitely worth checking” – IDJ
“The real village type shiznit” – Careless Talk
“A bloody classic” **** – Big Cheese
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REALITY RAPS – April 2004
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“We can wax lyrical about this EP but our best advise is to buy it and throw away the receipt”
- Hip-Hop Connection
“Kid Acne drops three pearls of bug-eyed boom-bap stupidity” – Jockey Slut
“More off-the-hook mirth-rap from your man like Acne” – Vice Magazine
“Reality Raps was the moment I stopped simply admiring Kid Acne and actually started loving the shit he does. Sureplayer” **** – DJ Magazine
“It’s clear from the cover it’s going to be great. Go buy it. It’s the bomb” **** – Big Cheese
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Shaun Bloodworth x Stabby Women
Work in progress from my current collaboration with fellow Sheffield resident and internationally acclaimed photographer, Shaun Bloodworth. Expect to see more Stabby Women portraits in the near future…
Photos © Shaun Bloodworth
Triple Intruder – SVC / Toah Dingles / Earl Shilton Lp’s
More blast-beats from the past with un, dos, tres Invisible Spies Lp’s now available online;
SUPREME VAGABOND CRAFTSMAN – Twice As Nude, TOAH DYNAMIC – Cops Hate Our Love and EARL SHILTON – Two Rooms (Full of Insects).
‘Supreme Vagabond Craftsman, for my money is one of the best. An incredible blend that is highly unlikely to get commercial success, but it really should do. ‘ - Badly Drawn Boy – The Guardian
‘The South Yorkshire-based troupe of sound scape vandals and maverick MC talent have really come up with the goods. They don’t just promise ‘the sound of your barge holiday as it pulls up to a scrap yard of unruly Alsatians’, they actually deliver it.’ – Mojo
‘One of the best metal records we’ve received for Christ-only-knows how long. Deftly traipses through speed, death, black, Viking and abstract heavy metal without being artsy and annoying. Total mastery of the steed of metaldom. F*cking killer.’ - Vice Magazine (Album of the Month)
Rap Traffic (Invisible Spies 2001)
Bit by bit, we’re uploading the entire Invisible Spies back catalogue to the electronic-filing-cabinet for the comedown download generation to enjoy.
Check the progress HERE and discover long lost gems by Toah Dynamic, Kid Acne, Benjamin, Mongrels and Supreme Vagabond Craftsman.
The latest up to get down is my 1st LP, ‘Rap Traffic’ recorded round at Req’s house in Brighton a decade ago. Here’s what the critics said about our endeavours back in the Y2K+1…
“Admirably Warped” – Jockey Slut
“A distinctly British take on B-Boydom. Flawed comic genius” - Seven
“Goddamn. This is 100% of that hip-hop shit. Go play in the traffic” – ATM
“Lo-fi raw genius with real ’83 venom. Keep an eye on these clowns” – DJ
“Sounds like a 15th generation dub from the T-Connection circa 1981 with some killer trashcan percussion à la 23 Skidoo” - Wire
“The freshest, most unpretentiuos, lo-fi, graf-writers-getting-it-right-by-getting-it-wrong music odyssey you will hear until his next release. Get” – Muzik
“Something to be commended in an age of dollar bills and fur coats. This is one to watch”
- Record Collector
“Slugtrails on the wax, drizzle on the jeepster and tea in the pot while the two beat-boys downgrade fidelity. Fresh” – Bizarre Magazine
“Deep, surrealist Brit-Hop. Check the rhymes and see if you can work out what the f*ck the Kid is on about” – Mix Mag
“Rougher than a crocodile’s nad sack. Inventiveness to the fore and well worth tracking down”– Ministry
“Truly creative. Grab yo’self a ladle. Shit is piping hot” – Knowledge
Short video from Outdoor Festival in Rome, which I was part of recently…
Zebra Face – 10 Year Anniversary Books
A decade ago, Supreme Vagabond Craftsman and I published our first book. He wrote the stories and I drew the pictures. It was called ZEBRA FACE and chronicled the adventures of a rubbish superhero and his mouthorgan-weilding sidekick as they battled a succession of baddies in a 2Dimentional universe with only rudimentary rhyme skills as their ‘special powers’.
With no distribution deal, website or blog – the book created a wave ripple of interest from the music press and style mags of the time. Via independent record shops, book shops and clothes shops we managed to shift 1,000 copies across the country, throughout Europe and as far away as the US and Japan, which to us felt like a huge success.
Having moved studio and house umpteen times since them days, we recently discovered a few boxes of unsold books. In celebration of the 10 year anniversary, we’ve lobbed them online to get your fingers wrapped round HERE.
Yo Insomniakz this is proof of the truth comin right through yo sunroof. This is two hover-trouser emcees with Guess Who moustaches and dangly earrings goin one plus one on the fuckin runway, ridin scramblers up yo embankment. 100cc is our situation you get weh?
Pock-marked skinheads from out the navy wearin Global Hypercolour, ekkin for a dust up, comin your way with a fist full o nuggets and one eye on the newsagents. Trip-hop is our game, see me larfin? Buju Bedtimes cold ghettin dumb and dumber, different strokin, rekked our limbs from fallin off mopeds that’s why we get bought drinks see? PM Dawn of the Dead overweighters duckin in your hedgerow lookin for ripped up bash mags and golf-balls so we got summat to cob at motors. No cell phones only CBs, we’re ravin we’re ravin.
Hycote Writers’ Team – Photos by Ian Newcomb circa 2001.
Hell yes. We’ve finally been given the green light for the animated series too, which features a whole host of bad-boy MCs doing the characters’ voices. More about that in 2012 when Zebra Face hits your haunted fish tank live and direct!