“Guns, bitches and bling were never part of the four elements and never will be.”
Dan and Pip are re-writing the current hip-hop rulebook. But, having signed to Radio One DJ Rob Da Bank’s record label and ignoring major label advances, the point of their rulebook is that there are no rules; no boundaries to Pip’s effervescent lyrical flow and no monotone in Dan’s metronomes. Take ‘Tommy C’ for example, a song that likens beauty to the moment Tommy Cooper died onstage to rapturous applause and laughter at his act.
The theme running through Angles is a critique of society. Looking at love there’s the tender anti-pop anthem and recent single, ‘Look For The Woman’, and one in the eye for James Blunt’s shallow hit through the aforementioned ‘Tommy C’; redressing the malaise and typecasting of hip-hop music by seeking to act as a positive role model in ‘Development’ and sampling Dizzee Rascal’s ‘Fix Up Look Sharp’ on ‘Fixed’ to bemoan the lack of worthwhile messages in the genre outline Pip’s goal of merging IDM with hip-hop via witticism and eloquence.
Learning his trade on the spoken word circuit, Pip hones in incisively on tales of personal drama, and intelligently identifies the causal ripples that shimmer through the actions of one person, in the way a stone pierces the water, in title track ‘Angles’ and ‘Magician’s Assistant’. The pair isn’t afraid to take on larger scale issues either, as in the anti-capitalist theistic rant, ‘Letter From God To Man’.
From when opening head-nodder ‘The Beat That My Heart Skipped’ is preceded by a battle cry (“I ain’t gonna take it no more”) you know that Angles will be a bit special; essential, in fact.
Pick: CAN’T DECIDE!! CAN I PUT THREE?! – No Ian, you can’t. Can you please choose one!
8/10
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