Fila Brazillia "Mess" 1996

Members of the acclaimed underground label Pork Recordings, Fila Brazillia's innovative productions bring a warm, live feel to Downtempo electronic music, freely drawing from idioms of Funk, hip-hop, and jazz. Producers Steve Cobby and Dave McSherry happen to be ace instrumentalists, piecing together deceptively simple breakbeats, deep, sinuous basslines, and swirls of synths in several voices, from the watery sounds of a Fender Rhodes to the squirm of an abused oscillator. Many of their productions ooze futuristic Lounge kitsch, full of hip-wiggling bongo breaks, lush keyboards, snippets of flute, and electronically doctored horn blasts. Others are pure instrumental Funk, complete with clavinet lines straight from the Headhunters. And the occasional crunchy guitar riff reveals sympathy with the pleasure of rock 'n' roll, though always filtered through several layers of chorusing and flange effects.
- Noah Enelow

MESS is the third album in the Fila canon. It's the point at which the duo of Cobby and McSherry was justly becoming a force to be reckoned with on the Kingston-Upon-Hull scene. Among the denizens of the notorious downtempo scene, amid a riot of drum-and-bass, skanking basslines, Martian bleeptronics, and sampledelica run amok, Fila Brazillia and the mighty Pork label have carved out a unique niche.

MESS is an intriguing album. Those listeners fortunate enough to possess a rather dense jazz collection might find a number of their favorite bits here–albeit mutated, twisted, and wrinkled beyond recognition. In effect, Cobby and McSherry blast the hell outta the Blue Note catalog, reinventing '70s fusion along the way. Check out the Horace Silver electrofunk of "Big Saddle," for starters–big beat before the beats begged out. And then there's the Fila wit that drips out between the cracks of such tracks as "Wavy Gravy," with its sampled blurb name-checking Charles Manson over somersaulting percussion, wheezing synths, and some nut in the background sucking air through a pennywhistle. A big smile spreads over the face…

Track listing

1 Last of the Red Hot Brethren (2:15)
2 Big Saddle (4:58)
3 Space Hearse (6:07)
4 Half Man Half Granary Thorax (1:39)
5 But Momma (4:55)
6 Laying Down the Law on the Lard (5:03)
7 Wavy Gravy (4:37)
8 Soft Music Under Stars (10:10)
9 Hairy Insides (6:50)
10 DP's R Us (2:31)
11 On Yer Haunches (4:51)
12 Howard Dan Ryan (5:34)
13 Blood (5:33)
14 Return of the Red Hot Brethren (2:13)