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Album Reviews
Album Review: Breakage – Foundation (Digital Soundboy)
By Paul Vig | Published on Friday 12 March 2010
Breakage, aka James Boyle, has a definite pedigree in drum n bass, having started out at seminal jungle/dnb label Reinforced. Move on nearly a decade and this producer has diversified into slightly different areas and delivers an interesting LP on Shy FX’s label, Digital Soundboy.
He covers many styles on here. The reggae-infused slow groover ‘Open Up’ leads into some good old fashioned drum n bass with ‘Old Skool Ting’, which, as its title suggest, takes us back in the day with its samples and little inflections. Rising star Zarif appears to provide vocals on ‘Over’, adding shades of Mary J Blige and Elizabeth Troy to what is a little 2-step gem. ‘Squid Bass’ is a jokey interlude, while the Roots Manuva guesting ‘Run Em Out’ has a dancehall flavour and takes the tempo down.
‘Vial’, featuring Burial, is good dubstep par excellence: moody, beatsy and minimal, while ‘Hard’ with the Newham Generals has a grime feel. There has been a lot of fuss about that track – but it’s not the highlight. Elsewhere, ‘Higher’ doesn’t quite deliver and ‘Speechless’ goes off on a tangent with a proper guitar solo kicking in it at the end, but ‘If’ is a good cut to round us off, with its dubby little samples.
A good package, it covers a lot of styles in a more than competent fashion – this could be a very big album for Boyle. PV
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