hardnoise. untitled. suspect packages. 12"

now we definitely weren't going to bring you any more verbals until our 2006 round-ups, now due in the third quarter of 2007 (ish), but this single will not feature in those. not because it isn't brilliant (it is), but because it doesn't quite fit into any of the lists we were contemplating, being a welcome reissue of a classic from 1990, in the same brilliant sleeve, which jumped out at me from the record rack the other week. o happy day.

engineered by avuncular ukhh legend no sleep nigel, subject of one of hhc's excellent homestyle interviews early this year, "untitled" is a feast of untapped energy - the epitome of a debut single, in any genre. it's a strange beast in some ways, having no choruses or conventional hooks (both of which are the curse of modern rap music) and instead it flips between tight, fluttering instrumental passages and heavy, public enemy-inspired bursts of machine gun rapping. basically, it's a masterpiece of the sort of scratching and big beats of which zygote - to be bigged up within these pages anon - would heartily approve.

we've been dusting off all sorts recently - derek b, mc duke, caveman, "14 days in may" - but "untitled" still seems the least dated, most vital statement of uk hip-hop from that post-c86 era, and confirms that hardnoise are about the most aptly named band kind of ever. like other groups of the time (the mayfields spring to mind) they did nothing save release a couple of brilliant singles, but if their follow-up tune, "mice in the presence of lions" could also get a new pressing from the nice suspect packages peeps, that would be fab. then, can we can get on to the urgent need for hijack and son of noise retrospectives, given that their 12" singles are still going for upwards of twenty quid secondhand, even when you can find them. plus, as it's christmas, can we add our annual plea to santa for a bogshed comp ? cheers.

compliments of the season to you all. and now more than ever, peace.


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