Nic Brown
Unexpectedly discovering that one of instrumental grime's most exciting new futurists had run with the idea of incorporating some contemporary metal samples into his next EP was a bit like finding a sapphire-studded, fully laden crack pipe monogrammed with my name on a velvet cushion on my doorstep (yes, I'm prone to exaggeration periodically but ...). Immediately my hopes turned to records like "Soused", Scott Walker's apocalyptic collaboration with Sunn O))) or The Soft Pink Truth's gloriously irreverent "Why Do The Heathen Rage?" which gives some of black metal's most revered standards a house makeover (Drew Daniel's destruction of Sarcofago's "Ready To Fuck" has to be heard to be believed). OK, so my expectation circuits went into overdrive but "The Third Place" is a superb EP nonetheless and offers a plethora of new directions for a genre that has already splattered the stinking ichor of an assortment of ideas-bereft dance music zombies over the walls of one or two clubs. It's not until closing track "Timmy" that a distorted guitar riff rears its pretty head unfettered but the background presence of axes being wielded amongst delicate piano riffs and the strange female vocal that makes "Mixed Signals" a genuine head-turner shows Odeko to be a shrewd experimentalist prepared to hold his trump cards close to his chest, making the sudden reveal all the more effective. Pass on this and you're missing the start of something that could turn out to be pivotal to the future of grime.
Favorite track: Timmy.