Take London
Label: Ninja Tune
Rated: NONE
WorkNameSort: Take London
The Herbaliser’s fifth album is a feast of flashy brass, soaring string samples, skip-hopping beats and cryptic London raps. U.K. hip-hop has always sounded rather off-kilter; their DJs and producers consistently spice up their arrangements with something more than the lowest-common-denominator thinking that permeates U.S. hip-hop. Take London is a testament to freshly retro thinking, and The Herbaliser’s Ollie Teeba and Jake Wherry are unafraid to create big productions that combine hard-bop and free-jazz sounds with hip-hop vocals and soundtrack samples. Take London‘s guest rappers are as foulmouthed as their U.S. counterparts, but the album is at its best on tracks like “Geddim” and “Lord, Lord,” adventurous, dense creations that exceed mundane concerns, coming close to realizing the sonic potential of other innovative U.K. ’90s acts like Portishead, Squarepusher and Coldcut.
This article appears in Jun 15-21, 2005.