With elements of breaks, dub, hip hop, and even a dash of industrial, Hotalacio’s three-song 12″ Talkin’ Out The Side Of Your Neck is reminiscent of the On-U sound of the mid-to-late 1980s, though a bit more metallic in the percussion especially on “Don’t Kick Me”. It’s edginess is precise, like an impossibly sharp scalpel, a cutting of metal-on-metal that brings with it a certain sterility that differentiates it from it’s more dubby cousins. The other B side track, “Deconstruction”, introduces yet another element with some short heavy-metal-like guitar riffs that clash with the funky bass line and snappy electronic percussion, somehow blending these elements together into something that grooves. Definitely a cool 12″ and one worth picking up.
London Underground were on the very first release by the On-U label, a split 7″ with the New Age Steppers in 1980, though by 1983 they had reached the end of the line. They released a pair of albums that year, the eight-song At Home With The London Underground (March) and the six-song mini-album Current Affairs Session (October).
Right from the opening track “Pull Down Your Pants” ATM had me hooked with the slow, almost languid beats dripping thickly like a Solo cup of purple drank. It’s electro, it’s post-punky, it’s dub… it’s like being stoned and trying to eat caramel, or watching your dog eat peanut butter.
Sometimes fate forces you to buy a record. A few weeks back we were in Hiroshima, Japan with plans of stopping at Dumb Records. When we got there they weren’t open yet so we decided to head back up to the main street and just wander around for a bit, but then right there on the corner we spotted the sign for Stereo Records and figured we’d just go check them out first. Stereo Records is a great shop – small like most record stores in Japan, but well organized and full of awesome stuff. I pulled a 12″ called Robot War out of the Japanese Pop/Rock section simply because it looked interesting, and imagine my surprise when I flipped it over and saw that it was recorded at On-U Sound and produced by none other than 
This 12″ from 1979 caught my eye the other day over at Seattle’s Daybreak Records, and I’m glad it did. I can’t tell you much about Red Beat, but the three songs on Machines In Motion sound like The Clash at their most dub… and then dubbed some more. It’s hard to believe this is from 1979 – it feels like something from a few years later that On-U Sound might have put out.