MJ Cole
It’s All About the Stragglers
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Several of two-step’s prime movers broke away from drum ‘n’ bass (Steve Gurley, a highly sought two-step producer and remixer, was part of Foul Play, the group behind the early jungle classics “Open Your Mind” and “Finest Illusion”). Like drum ‘n’ bass’s early incarnations, two-step tracks have breathy female vocals and impressionistic song structures. But two-step is pop friendlier–the beats may be shifty but they accommodate traditional songs better than drum ‘n’ bass’s rolling piledrive. Two-step’s musical MO is smoothness disrupted–clicking beats, clipped bass lines, riffs that sound like they’re played on vibraphones or African mbiras (thumb pianos), all pushed to the soothing center of the stereo field. Even at its most abstract it’s a very approachable sound, yet none of the British two-step artists who’ve released their own albums in the U.S. seems to know what to do about it.
Whenever someone makes an album in a fresh dance style that doesn’t sound like a patched-together compilation, some writer will declare, “Finally! A real artist writing real songs has produced a real album.” MJ Cole’s Sincere has taken advantage of this critical reflex–but are we really supposed to believe an album that begins with the words “Take a ride on the wild side”? Two-step may be “wild” by definition (because of its cannonading bass lines and, even more, its underground cred), yet Sincere is a classy, even fussy album–the lively “MJ FM Interlude,” a tribute to London pirate radio, is the only track that isn’t overly concerned with maintaining its decorum.
