“This is dance music that you’d have great difficulty dancing to,” is how one reviewer described RPM 33 BPM 111/113 back in 1998, about a decade after its release. “If you tried dancing to this,” the writer continued, “you’d probably break your legs, although that’s not a criticism.” Hell, that sounds like a ringing endorsement to me, and I for one can’t wait to drop the needle on this thing.
Spanner Thru Ma Beatbox was a one-off project by producer Nigel Ayers, probably best known musically for his experimental sound-art group Nocturnal Emissions. There is very little info about it online – almost nothing, really. it was the third release on Ayers’ own Earthly Delights label and limited to 1,000 copies. It was only put out on vinyl and has never been reissued. There is no track listing, though per the labels there are 17 tracks in all. The compositions are generally beat-driven, but disjointed with samples fracturing the beats and BPMs changing unexpectedly, hence the reviewer suggesting you might break your legs if you tried to dance to it. It would be reasonable to compare it to early Tackhead and On-U recordings – experimental, heavily leveraging samples and drum machines, somewhat groovy despite its inherent mechanical sound. The tracks feel a bit more like backing tracks or concepts than fully realized songs, but they’re long enough to be more than mere fragments of ideas.
You can give Spanner Thru Ma Beatbox at the Nocturnal Emissions Bandcamp page HERE if you’re interested in checking it out.