Valta and Minikin - Man Down / Bad Sex

Valta & Minikin - Bad Sex / Man Down (Rag And Bone) released 31 Jan 2011
Rag and Bone continue to belt the living shit out of it, with the debut 12" from Ukranian duo Valta and Minikin; two cuts of wub-mental breaks, shouty hype vocals and punishing bass noise. It's very much in line with the previous Rag and Bone releases from King Cannibal et al, kicking in fast, hard and to the point. Opening with a tightly arpeggiated melody, the wobble lurks in the background, ready to pounce, until the holler of "Man down!" kicks everything into big bassline territory. Strapping James Brown to the operating table and Six-million-dollaring him to fuck, Valta and Minikin create a surgically-enhanced form of breakbeat designed to track down and destroy unbelievers. I remember .at/on, a Ukranian glitch/noise producer explaining a graph where the X-axis is "popularity of dubstep in an area", and the Y-Axis "prevalence of Ketamine in the same area" - clearly the vets in Kiev need to be taking better care of their prescription booklets. Indeed, whilst much of UK bass music is plunging deeper into the abstract, and seperating itself from the full-on rave-phenomena of the past few years, it definitely seems like in Kiev, Bigger is definitely Better. The only exception to the turbo-powered walloping is a gentle steppa's guitar pushing it's way through the mix on occaison; a sound that misleadingly introduces the B-side, setting us nicely up for a RSD-esque skanker before the barking bassline comes back in full force.

To be fair, who expected any kind of subtlety from a track titled Bad Sex? Nah. If you like the Squire of Gothos album (who doesn't?) or other Rag and Bone artists like King Cannibal, NoYeahNo, Stagga etc, you should definitely get this in your record collection. If you prefer your bass to tease, scintillate, and draw you into an atmosphere, put down the spliff and give this a shot. Not suitable for children under 16years of age, women expecting babies, or those of a nervous disposition. May contain chemicals.