THE ENGLISH TAPE, SIDE 2 TRACK 1
ASIAN DUB FOUNDATION – “Real Great Britain” (from the album Community Music)
And no, they can’t take a joke. Racist fucksticks at Rolling Stone reducing Asians to curry waiter stereotypes just illustrate why ADF – straightahead political and proud of it – do what they do. Great thing is, you don’t need the politics to enjoy them, but you can’t escape them either. The rapping, a clumsy gabble, is the worst thing about them: the music meanwhile is endlessly fresh, surprising and messy, a gorgeous clatter, a proud sonic blurt. Rafi’s Revenge was the best drum’n’bass album for ages, cheap and instant, and free of the clenched-arse metropolitan posturings that genre had got stuck in. “Real Great Britain” is more of the same (but what a same!). No need to swerve now. Everything’s in overdrive, the country gets neatly described as a “shoegazer nation”, and then the song breaks open into a 20-second burst of rapturous Bunnymen-psych guitar. And Rolling Stone preferred Terris?