The Rootmasters are Dr Alex Paterson, taking time out from completing an
amazing new Orb album, and Nina Walsh, whose been ploughing her own unique
electronic furrow for the last 15 years since running Sabrettes and
collaborating with all sorts of well-known reprobates and rabbit
impersonators. The debut album hatched in their South London studio over the
past year is trailered with a ten-inch featuring four tasty morsels which
will swiftly lodge themselves in your pleasure sacs, insidiously working
their magic from within. ‘Book Of Hours’ is a metronomic dub-pulser topped
with distant vocals which appear to be Lx somewhat recalling Metal Box
Lydon. It comes with an Autolump version which starts with toupee-whisking
duberama before a tribal techno beat steams in after three minutes,
unleashing divebomb fx attacking a toilet-straining hippo and whistle-hook.
The lovely ‘Janis Joplin’s Room’ is deep and dreamy, all dismembered voice
bites before Nina’s vocals and stately oceanic theme with gentle hippo
flatulence for percussion. ‘Elephant Puddle’ rides tough, almost military,
breaks ushering in sonic madness and extra-terrestrial melodies before a
booming bass riff takes it in a new, deranged direction which somehow ends
up floating in space-jazz territory. With studio trickery, rampant
exploration and avant garde whoopee of the highest order, Rootmasters have
turned out a magic bus where riding is pure, brain-scrambling pleasure.
5 Out Of 5
Reviewed By: Kris Needs
