BASHY WENT FRENCH THOUGH (Bashy: Fire In The Booth)

Truth be told, and I am ashamed to say it, I've never really gone out my way to listen to Bashy. The only time I've not seen him in a non-commercial light is on LOTM and on features which, I was always impressed by, but for some reason I still never acted on it. Consequently, before I had a gander at his Fire In The Booth, the image of Bashy in my head was just "commercial Bashy". While I liked the concept of his recent single, 'These Are The Songs', there wasn't much more for me to get realllllly excited about...

...then he spoke French.

He starts with all that political ishhhhhh which was a straight big green tick from me. You could say addressing real issues is something Bashy has done from the start, for example, with 'Black Boys'. But that was years ago, and who want's to be a millionaire etc were hardly the same calibre. Then, came the Arctic Monkey's instrumental and Bashy started talking about big boy stuff. Like, actual, proper grown stuff. None of that pretending he is something he isn't and stunting for image. What's better is that, yes, this realness radiated maturity, but it still left enough room for Bashy to have fun and do fun things i.e. throw shots at Dappy :D

The fire started after all of this though. Flows upon flows to spout a whole loada truth, from how to break the system to how you should reflect on your reflection in the mirror if it's showing you a man in a skirt. This Fire In The Booth was basically just full of ridiculously quotable stuff and yet the most un-quotable part was the ne plus ultra and yes, I know I went Latin, but that's only because BASHY WENT FRENCHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

Yes.

A verse of fire in French. Lord help me if I knew what he was actually saying jheeezeeeeeeeeeee. Prior to the FITB, the image of Bashy in my head was "Commercial Bashy" in his video pushing a trolley of sacks with the pound sign on them in Arial Black  font. By the end, it had transformed into Ashley-Bashley Thomas sitting in a Jean Paul Gaultier suit eating a croissant (because French innit).
If I never rated him before, I deffo rated him now.

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Random Access Memories - Daft Punk

I thought my first exposure to Daft Punk was in the form of "Get Lucky" only 2 weeks ago. Turns out, the song that brings back floods of childhood memories, "One More Time", is actually one of their creations. But this was a product of my research AFTER I had listened to Random Access Memories. I decided I wanted to listen to Random Access Memories before I properly researched anything else Daft Punk had brought to the table. I wanted to see if their new offerings' effect on me, as a Daft-Punk-Virgin (well..I thought), would mirror the effects their old music did back when it first fell on the ears of the 90's era - such an effect that their comeback was so anticipated that R.A.M became the fastest album of 2013. In a nutshell - I wanted to see what the fuss was about.

The 2 tracks that stole my soft spot were; Lose Yourself To Dance and Doin' It Right. Maybe it's Pharrell's vocals that helped me take a liking to the track because lets face it Pharrell is Pharrell and I really wouldn't mind taking up on his offer of his shirt and wiping off all that "sweat sweat SWEAT" as I Lose Myself To Dance and allow the grooviest (yes I said grooviest) track on the album to entrance me. Doin' it Right intrigues me because it's slightly distant as a track on it's own, as well as standing out from the rest of the album with it's stuttery, spaced beats it feels a bit less warmer than the rest of the album. As the penultimate track, for me it's a sort of a signal of the ending of the journey and a step back from the experience before you move into the final track, Contact, and cool down.


The best thing about the album though, was me getting something I never expected. Looking at the genre of the album described as "Electronic", my mind flicked to images of artists with the likes Labrinth and Disclosure. It therefore became a contrast to have the expectations of synthetic, futuristic, computerised beats and actually end up being hit with the undistorted and pure forms of the flutes, violins, horns among all the other instruments that hold up the the groovy (yes I said groovy again) beats seasoned with the sounds of the synths and vocoded voices. I was tricked by their robot helmets and computer Jargon related titling into thinking I was going to be hearing something quite the opposite to what in fact, ended up reminding me of something I'd hear on Top Of The Pops 2.

I like Top Of The Pops 2. I also like Random Access Memories.


Freshly Old School.

A Step Back Into The Future.

Funkaaaayyyy.

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