Labels: self released
Review by: Dangerous Jamie
Judging a CD/DVD by its cover, I had assumed that Save Me would be an altogether more minimal affair. The simple white text on black glossy paper look lead me to believe I would be spinning something pretty bleak sounding that had some affectation of record player hiss all over it. What I got was a very different animal.
Save Me contains warm and visceral loops that toast your brain cells a lovely golden brown while simultaneously harking back to the trip hop glory days of the mid 90’s. The opening tune Can’t See The Soul has a few moments where you wouldn’t be out of line for mistaking it for Massive Attack’s classic, Teardrop. Wearing influences below the shoulder is never a bad thing though as Rookiecop’s sleeve is adorned with the likenesses of DJ Shadow, cLOUDDEAD and Leftfield to name but a few. The beauty of Save Me is how these various influences and styles are rendered into a veritable broth of meaty trip hop flavoured loveliness.
All three tracks included on Save Me all represent a very similar stylistic approach that works very well, heavy speech samples and swelling strings seem to be the modus operandi which, while it doesn’t break any new ground, definitely bears some delicious aural fruit.
The sleek looking DVD case also contains a video for Can’t See The Soul. Shot by Ed Christmas on what appears to be a budget of very little, the video includes some really interesting videos and equally interesting ideas. Although it doesn’t have enough style to satiate my hunger for glossy post production, it fits nicely alongside the track and riffs on similar themes.
A good friend once told me that the key to good electronic music is space, and Rookiecop has it in spades. There is a fine art to creating layers of intricate sounds that are both full and spacey which really makes this EP stand out from the thousands of bedroom electro-noodlers (of which I used to be one) that I hear almost daily on various social networking sites. It won’t win any awards for originality, but it is certainly some of the most accomplished and interesting electronic music I have heard in a long time.