REVIEWS
13
Faces reviewed on The Fly
LIGHTNING
HEAD: AFROBEAT EP LH12001
Recording
throughout the mid-'90s as a part of groundbreaking ambient
dub group Rockers Hi-Fi (Different Drummer, Island, Warners),
Glyn "Bigga" Bush didn't let up after the group disbanded
at the end of the decade. Instead, Bush evolved his sound, keeping
dub as the foundation and adding other eclectic musical structures
on top. The results have included solo albums for Sonar Kollektiv
(Studio Don as Lightning Head) and Stereo Deluxe (Biggabush
Free, Sound Sensation as Bigga Bush).
"Bigga" Bush got his nickname from his tall (6'7")
frame and reggae-themed downtempo electronic productions, but
recently he's debuted a new alias: Lightning Head. Lightning
Head's 1999 single, "Me & Me Princess," on Germany's
Best Seven, took many by surprise with its confident, bubbling
dancehall groove. From there, LH released a split EP with Cutty
Ranks in 2001, as well as the aforementioned Sonar Kollektiv
album.
So, what's next for this towering dub traveler? Lion Head Recordings
is this veteran's new label, and has a new EP scheduled for
May and album soon.
The new, mostly instrumental 12" single explores West African
styles, including High Life, Nigerian Funk, and Afrobeat, with
a funky fusion approach similar to recent releases by Fela Kuti
drummer Tony Allen or France's Comet Recordings.
Lightning Head's take on Africa is strictly deep, groovy tracks
that will inspire complacent dancers. Bush gives us a run-down
on the EP's tracks: "'N.P.G.' stands for the 'Nigerian
Policeforce Groove,' and that's exactly what it is! 'Bokoor
Sound Special' features Ghanaian vocals and highlife guitar
with balafon over a heavy rhythm. 'Afro Spot' is named after
the famous nightclub in Lagos [Nigeria]-big bad horns vie with
James Brown-style guitars. Finally, 'Ilu Baje (Sick State)'
is a 6/8 gidamba rhythm with swirling electric organ and filthy
flute lines."
Look out for the forthcoming 13 Faces of Lightning Head album
on Lion Head.
Tomas Palermo XLR8R review Apr 08
iDJ//recommended//
Afrobeat
Lion Head Recordings (UK), LH12001
A welcome return to wax for Glyn 'Bigga' Bush, veteran dubhead
and producer of bass-heavy dancefloor beats. As the artist name
suggests, this first release on his own Lion Head imprint sees
the Lightning Head man turn his hand to afrobeat. As expected,
he does an excellent job recreating the sound of West Africa
in the 1970s, fusing bass-heavy afro-rhythms with parping horns,
sweet solos and lush guitar work. All four tracks come sprinkled
with his own dub magic - especially the wonderful 'Bokoor Sound
Special' - making "Afrobeat" a delightful listening
experience. A label to watch methinks.
4/5 Matt Anniss, iDJ magazine
LIGHTNING
HEAD "NPG"
Lion Head/ UK/12EP
Glyn "Bigga" Bush of Rockers Hi-Fi fame heats it up
once again with this Afrobeat burner for the Summertime sessions.
Good God, man- how'd this guy get so funky? Open up the doors
and windows and invite the neighbors- this is the joint.
Toph One, June/July issue of XLR8R #118
Lightning
Head
AfroBeat EP
Lion Head Recordings (UK) LH12001
Originally known for his work with Rockers Hi Fi, Lion Head
Recordings is the new label from veteran electronic dub producer
Glyn "Bigga" Bush. Bigga set up Lion Head in 2006
to be the future carrier of all sounds released from his Dorset
studio. These include limited edition funk, afro and dub vinyl
releases, with a new album "13 Faces of Lightning Head'
coming in September 2008. In the meantime, from the title of
this EP you'll get what this release is about; killer!
4/5 Pathaan, iDJ
BIGGA
BUSH : SOUND SENSATION
Bigga
Bush, who has been 50% of the infamous NeoDub-project Rockers
Hi-Fi in the nineties, comes up with his CD "Sound Sensation"
on Stereo Deluxe, which functions as Mix-CD as well as a showcase
of Bigga's remix works and personal taste of music as it features
a whole bunch of exclusive re-works, re-edits, additional dub
FX that are only to be found on this album. Coming from a Dub
& soundsystem background Bigga Bush is more a selecta than
beatmatching DJ but still rulin' tings and rockin' da house.
Starting the mix with a massive overdub version of Kode 9 &
The Spaceape's "Sine Of The Dub" which is proper bassheavy
Dubstep, swinging into eclectic afro-influenced Funk, later
into thrilling DigiDancehall with DJ Rupture ft. Sister Nancy,
some latin-influenced beats as well plus a fine blend of Urban
Music that might be called somewhat in between BrokenBeats/Phusion/Freestyle
and Reggaeton-like beat structures. And Reggae. Anyone willing
to come up with a name for that? No? I don't mind at all 'coze
the mix is fat. Get it.
http://www.nitestylez.de/Friday,
December 09, 2005
BIGGA
BUSH : BIGGA BUSH FREE
RE:UP
MAGAZINE #004
When
Birmingham's prolific Rockers Hi-Fi Sound System disbanded at
the end of the century, it could have been the last we heard
from Richard Whittingham and BiggaBush.Thankfully
though, the two have flourished since the split, both expanding
the spectrum of the Rockers' scope in their own way. Whittingham
squatted on Different Drummer, becoming the chief operator for
this successful electro-roots label out of Birmingham. Biggabush
set out on a solo expedition – ambitiously fusing salsa,
dancehall, and Afrobeat riddims under the Lightning Head guise
in 2002's sleeper hit entitled Studio Don.
On
Biggabush Free, he appears to have stopped trying so hard. And
that's a good thing. Rather than throw a bunch of darts and
see if any stick to the dancefloor anthem cork board, Biggabush
simply aimed to write great songs – something thats not
done nearly enough in the electronic music world. This doesn't
mean Biggabush Free is just a "listening album" –
the openers such as the (almost minimal-housey "Outernational
Anthem" and the (not surprisingly) trippy "Acid Fly"
have Charlie Hustle working very hard for them.
On
the other hand, four songs in is "Deep Eastwood" which
is like one of those movies that brands such a unique and striking
impression that it's hard to resist giving the entire plot away
to friends who have yet to see it. It begins by quietly breezing
by with a down-the-hallway rim-shot shuffle rhythm. A call-and-response
pairing with a harpischord and baritone sax sound is delicately
layered in. Then there's a breakdown in the rhythm and the dubbed-out
sax gets tweaked off the meter. As that infectious sax sound
floats away, the shuffling rhythms transform into a rifling
but tidy breakbeat. With just enough triggered percussion and
samples to keep you wanting more, "Deep Eastwood"
is the albums' ace track.
There
are several other sparkles such as "Bigga Beatbox"
a sophisticated construction of verbal boom-bips and "This
River", where Sofiah Thom's harrowing voice professes the
divine over atmospheric pulsars and rootsy bass guitar plucks.
Overall, Biggabush Free is a unique masterpiece that doesn't
really sound like anything... yet.
Beau
Lamontagne, RE:UP
BiggaBush worked during the 1990s with the Rockers Hi Fi collective,
as well as his Lightning Head project. Since then he has expanded
his skills with remixes for artists in several genres, from
Ennio Morricone to Ella Fitzgerald (check the startling remake
of "Sunshine of your Love," with Ella's voice, on
the 2001 Groove Corporation Remixes).
His debut album on Stereo Deluxe, "Bigga Bush Free,"
is simply unclassifiable. At times he is closer to modern electronic
dance beats than dub reconstructions. But there is plenty of
music here that is flat out ambient, and I don't mean ambient
dub.
If there is a common theme, it would be basslines derived from
the Jamaican dub trajectory, combined with Bigga Bush's trademark
"chattering percussion" and idiosyncratic atmospheric
effects. "Bigga Beatbox" is dubbish downtempo, but
it's got a skittering cymbal beat that might be one of many
interlocking rhythms in a D&B polyrhythmic symphony. In
isolation, those chattering rhythms take on a melodic quality.
"Sole
Sister" is ambient music that takes time to build. Slowly,
dreamlike distant drums fade in, often no more than slow-motion
delays, echoes of musical worlds being reprocessed from a considerable
distance, in a different state of mind or consciousness.
"Mouseflex"
is ambient dub. There's no real theme here, but it creates a
vibe, first with the kind of skittering electronic motifs Sly
& Robbie used to employ, and then the vibes take on a new
quality after three minutes when the strings enter. This sounds
like Bigga Bush has a feature in soundtrack music, should he
so desire.
Several songs that exhibit a playful impishness. "Throwdown"
sounds like it must have been inspired by one of those simple
classic Jamaican rhythms like "Run Come," but it's
also got irresistible scratching by DJ Jay Rees.
But after several listenings, what stays with me are the moments
of sheer beauty. In "IOTK," a meditation I'll call
ambient for lack of a better term, a plucked harp repeats a
pattern like the drone or an Indian raga, with similar effects.
I'll leave my readers with a quote from a simply lovely song
called "This River," featuring a vocal by Sofiah Thom.
It features the repeated refrain: "The grace of God moves
me into dance."
Gregory Stephens.(May 2004) http://www.reggae-vibes.com/
Biggabush
(aka Lightning Head in order is not a summons of a crowd of
marines to an entry of basket, but the nickname megapterico
of one between the first movers of the dub of across the english
channel native of Northampton and known for a myriad of collaborations
of the astrolabio nu-jazzistico (will perceive it so also Bigga
seen that does abuse of the posters of Jamieson, a grafomane
with the fixed oneDubby a little houserecco and known in quality
of limb of the underestimate Rockers Hi-Fi, recently landed
on the island Ya Basta (the whose label catalog is known for
the presence of the Gotan Project). Although the shining curriculum,
this disk does not convince us of everything. A little too appisolato
and soporific for a good half (with some song that a little
dubitabondi leaves us -is the case for example of the acidume
aka rebirth and of the echo on the not happy breaks of Acid
Fly, of the moving out of position combination of sounds vintage
with the beat house of Outernatioanl Anthem or of the champion
of a pneumatic hammer to the end of Fresh Prana-), this diskthat
it resembles to a matsuri slowed down united to a box it is
audible with the scratching in the it advance from brindellone
of Throwdown and that it runs back often in other tracks (in
Mouseflex and Fresh Prana -effettata with you reflect and flanger-
or in Michaelangelo -the better track to our warning of this
debut in house Sterodeluxe-); nice also the temporary escapes
in auditory parks exotic (to strokes smbra of to listen to classic
of theOf percussions (Michaelangelo, IOTK, Self Judgement) and
some trickiness timbrico (amusing the fraseggio labiale that
it is confused with a water paffete the scratches of Jay Rees
in Bigga Beatbox). Good the quality of the feminine shouting
(Sofiah Thom and G. Rina). Like anzidetto, the so-called one
"mood" is comprehensively a little sonnecchioso, but
to the fine one quite be taken to the use in the summer meriggiare.
Reviewed on Italian site The Vibes, Aug 2004. Translated
by robot.
Bigga
Bush
Acid Fly
(Stereo Deluxe)
BiggaBush continues his fascination with atropic rhythms, hypersensitive
breaks, and beats that threaten to take on a life of their own.
Starting off slow, it mutates into a fierce electro-tinged workout.
DJ Fitchie from Fat Freddy's Drop shifts gears on the remix,
going for a Basic Channel vibe and a bass so deep they've already
sent for a search party.
Kieran Wyatt
4 out of 5
Update magazine Feb/Mar 2004
Acid
breakbeat anyone? Just like a sumo wrestler after a serious
traffic accident.fat and squelchy with plenty of serious breaks!
'Acid Fly' also has a supremely addictive hypnotic groove going
on, making it a really interesting hybrid of a tune. Acid breakbeat
works.
Steve
Kinsey
Vivacious
Dublin
Urb
Magazine, US December 2000
ROCKERS
HI FI MEET ELLA FITZGERALD
Sunshine ep [Leftfoot/UK]
The
tune simply everyone is desperate for after Gilles Peterson
began dropping it on his BBC radio show. With the Rockers trademark
dubbed-out spliff-bass underscoring Fitzgerald's anthemic soul
warble from "Sunshine of Your Love", this number is
destined for instant classic status. G-Corp remix in some Jamaican
cosmo-dub vibes, while Bigga Bush gives it a Brazilian batucada
rubdown.
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