Gil Scott-Heron & Jamie XX – NY Is Killing Me
Gil Scott-Heron & Jamie XX – NY Is Killing Me
XL Records
Written in January 2011. Review previously unpublished.
Review:
When the first rumours emerged late last year, that Jamie XX was set to remix the entirety of Gil Scott-Heron’s seminal I’m New Here album from last year, no-one was quite sure what to expect. Whilst the full album isn’t due till late next month, first track NY Is Killing Me is an incredibly strong calling card.
Against a canvas of spaced-out bleeps, whirring clicks and slightly off-kilter keys, Jamie has cut up Gil’s vocals and spread them across the track – slicing them and dicing them into a much sparser vocal role than the original, whilst keeping the tangible sense of vulnerability, despair and emotive quality that made the original version so powerful. Later Jamie introduce Burial like high-pitched soulful vocal samples that compliment and complete the package.
However, it’s the incredible baseline two-step baseline that drops after a teasingly long introduction that makes this finished product so damn tasty. As it bounces along with Gil’s vocals and Jamie’s additional production, the bass provides a strong structure that warps the track into a future garage number that deserves to be played in every forward thinking bass set this Spring.
Copyright Peter Adkins 2011
