Dabrye - "Get Dirty" EP

Dabrye - Game Over (feat. Jay Dee & Phat Kat) (Flying Lotus remix) (Ghostly International 2008)

Dabrye - "Get Dirty" EP / Ghostly International

There remains little doubt after 2006's Two/Three that Dabrye aka Tadd Mullinix is a man to watch no matter what he does. Burying himself in the forests of Ann Arbor and emerging with an industrial edge that could only be obtained through countless hours spent chopping down trees with high-powered buzzsaws, Mullinix is notorious for his dark, deviant beatmaking. It was by pure coincidence that I stumbled back across him and the brand new Get Dirty EP, having not checked the Ghostly International site in several weeks. I'm glad I did. This thing is awesome.

Every so often we review EPs here that we happen to like, no matter how big or small. Compared to our recent feature on The Field or the Flying Lotus EP from last year, Get Dirty is relatively short with three songs (The b-sides are instrumental versions of the a-sides) topping out inside a quarter of an hour. So why bother? The reason is because some of our favorite artists are on this plate. The shortlist: J Dilla, Kode9, Phat Kat, Flying Lotus. The better question ought to be: Why not bother?

Initially the interest is with the title-track featuring AG, a wobbly stab with dubstep overtones that would fit right in with the Hyperdub crowd. In fact, this song is two years old and first appeared on the third Ghostly podcast shortly after Two/Three was released. This doesn't mean it's any less potent as a single, and its beat sounds as fresh now as it did, er, a year and a half ago. Its notoriety comes from being the only actual Dabrye-only beat on the EP, since the two songs that follow are remixes. This also does not make it any less potent.

Kode9's remix of "Air (feat. Doom)" would ordinarily be the cat's meow on any single or EP with a group of remixes, paranoid synths holding high-pitched station in the background while crunk keys take the melody somewhere else and, of course, the lowest end of your speakers worry about their safety while the bass thumps madly in love with itself. Doom does his usual deep bass bit as well, a naturally heavier voice adding weight to an already dark song.

But the real party-starter here is Flying Lotus switching up "Game Over" to his own liking. "Dilla wit' Kat / It don't get sicker than that." No kidding, except even Dilla could not have foreseen how Steve Ellison has brought his own touch out from LA to school the Motor City stars featured here. Carte Blanche was one of my favorite records last year, and it's good to be reminded how tight Kat is with Dabrye, and how tight Dabrye was with Dilla. That Flying Lotus brings in his handclaps and strong grooves only adds to the good vibes going around.

The flip of the vinyl only confirms that you don't even need the emcees to show how great these beats are. Mullinix has built inherently strong rhythms that fellow visionaries can come in and tweak to their own end, tweak to add their own touch. That these particular artists have come together on such a small space of musical geography must only be some kind of cosmic coincidence, a gap in the space-time continuum, a glitch in the red pill soma of everyday life. The gods have been kind today. They must have known people were looking for something fresh to party to. "Let's get it up like it's Monday night." I'm down. Are you?