100% YES

Melt Yourself Down

explicit

Released on 2020-03-27 by Decca (UMO)
Main artists: Melt Yourself Down
Genre: Jazz

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After two justifiably lauded albums, Bristol's Melt Yourself Down lost two of its founding members. Saxophonist Shabaka Hutchings and drummer Tom Skinner both play in Sons of Kemet, as well in several as other groups. MYT bandleader Pete Wareham (Polar Bear, ex-Acoustic Ladyland) wasted no time recruiting saxophonist/keyboardist George Crowley and drummer Adam Betts full-time. This new version played a slew of gigs to acclimate their new members, then enlisted co-producers Youth and Ben Hillier when they entered the recording studio. The band emerged with three brilliant singles that included the futurist avant, global, jazz-funk of "Every Single Day," "It Is What It Is, " and the 21st century's edgiest, most political party anthem "Boot and Spleen."
100% Yes is the band's third album proper and contains those tracks and seven others. Their sound has shifted a bit; it's more inside, funkier, and dirtier. The frenetic dance music that sits at the core of the band's sound attack is ever present, but the out jazz takes a bit of a back seat to brittle, punk-inflected cosmic funk, Latin and Afro-Cuban rhythms, cumbia, and even Brazilian frevo offered with squalling horns, gutbucket basslines, and urgent yet often ecstatic chanted and call-and-response vocals. "Boot and Spleen" was the logical pick for an opener. This is a riotous party anthem full of contrast. Its stomping, jagged, rhythmic interplay between Betts and percussionist/drummer Satin Singh is infectious. While bassist/vocalist Ruth Goller offers her spidery, lean backbone-crushing bass atop squawking horns, vocalist Kush Gaya asks difficult questions about colonialism. "Born in a Manor" offers a more surreal and subdued sound, but pulls no punches, Gaya's vocals take aim at those responsible for classicism and racism: "Born in the manor/Born in the gutter/For dem it don’t matter/Blacker, whiter, browner/You burn in a tower." The deep, dubwise mix is drum- and keyboard-heavy as Goller's counter chant soars in the backdrop before Crowley adds a driving sax vamp to balance the drums. The influences of bands like the Pop Group, Rip, Rig and Panic, the later Specials, and the Slits remain but are partially disguised by MYD's hedonist energy; they seek chaos in the electro-cum-Afro-funk-cum-dub in "From the Mouth." "Crocodile," with its stacked, pile-driving rhythm tracks, is pulsed by Goller's filthy bassline and seamless call-and-response to provoke Gayal's narrative about the terrors of the Russian drug Krokodil, employing it as a metaphor for youth decay. "Chop Chop" is steaming, punky rhythm and jazz that punches Crowley's snaky sax through the vocals, drums, keys, and bassline to create a celebratory squeal. There is nothing subtle about 100% Yes. Despite the anger and activism in the lyrics, this set is saturated with the energy of hope; it's as if the collective practice of militancy was born of joy. This careening exhortation is a near-perfect soundtrack to counter the confusion, fear, and anger in the era of COVID-19, and any other catastrophe that befalls us.

© Thom Jurek /TiVo

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100% YES

Melt Yourself Down

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Boot And Spleen