Benga - Buzzin/One Million

Our review
Customer reviews
Press release

4...according to our Ant on Thu 28 May, 2009.

I just got the choice of reviewing the Starkey 12" on Planet Mu and the Benga 12" on Tempa and opted for the latter. I peeped at Benga's Myspace a few weeks ago and was most amused by the 'Sex, Drugs, and Dubstep' headline... No wonder he's called a tune 'Buzzin'. It's a solid fucker of a track, every element of the production is as fat and as crisp as you could hope for. It has a synth a bit like a demented bird wailing a like his big hit with Coki but done loads better and no where near as irritating. It feels spacious and gets a right old groove working. The percussion is totally sweet. Textbook dubstep gear done proper by one of the original producers. 'One Million' on the flip is another solid one with dirty analogue synths that could have come out of Belgium in the early 90's. The massive congas pound their way into your head. There's a sample from a hip hop tune which I can't place. Quality heavy dark gear even if the sample and the ravey sytnths make it a touch corny to these ears.

* Tempa 043 comes from the irrepressible Benga and leads with Buzzin’.

* If the omnipresent ’Night’ was cheery in demeanour, ’Buzzin’ is its deranged and aggressive cousin; equally as infectious but this time sporting a ragged, unkempt beard. Mechanical drum patterns run slightly behind the manic melody as if in attempt to tame it, and when eventual sedation does come, the calm is brief, 16 bars to be exact.

* ’Buzzin’’ is perfect peak-time rave weaponry, advance copies are already being battered by Skream, Joker, Plastician and Herve to devastating effect.

* The package is completed with ’One Million’, an off-peak roller which opens with a lead bassline reminiscent of Bad Company. Viscous sub-bass stabs topped with brittle drums give the track its industrial exoskeleton, whilst scurrying glitches and intermittent cymbal rides provide feeling for the eerily hollow interior of this doom evoking beast. Here lies the unceasing dark to ’Buzzin’s’ epileptic light.

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