A genuine thrill accompanies the release of Modern Streets, the first solo album release from Steve Spacek in eight years. This is almost criminal for someone so original and forward looking, but we’ll forgive him that because having signed to Ninja Tune, Spacek now has a record to praise to the skies. As you might expect it is unusual, the beats are far from uniform, and some of the lyrics are up close and personal, none more so than in the menacing ‘I Wanna Know’. Spacek has mostly used iPhone and iPad apps to write the album, and comes up with some remarkable music for ‘Inflight Wave’, a strange and heady mixture of soothing chords, calming falsetto and nervy, urgent beats. The beats of ‘Tonight’, which initially recall his Africa Hitech project with Mark Pritchard, sway persuasively under Spacek’s seductive falsetto, while ‘Alone in Da Sun’ basks in a strange light of futuristic soul and dubstep. Reggae and dancehall also feed into this record, reflecting perhaps the wide variety of cultures and influences of 1980s New Cross, where Spacek grew up and where this album is largely based. Yet ‘Modern Streets’ takes that heritage and turns it into a wholly new experience, an often thrilling piece of work notable for its warmth as well as its cutting edge. Very highly recommended.
5 out of 5
Reviewed by Ben Hogwood
{http://soundcloud.com/ninja-tune/sets/beat-spacek-modern-streets-1}
