“Album: Solex vs. Cristina Martinez & Jon Spencer, Amsterdam Showdown, King Street Throwdown! (Bronzerat)
Andy Gill
What I particularly like about Amsterdam Showdown, King Street Throwdown! is the way it defies simple categorisation, shifting shape and direction with virtually every track, and constructing weird, contradictory combinations of sounds which balance, as the poet once said, like a mattress balances on a bottle of wine.
This is partly due to the convoluted nature of its creation, with Amsterdam-based sample-splicer Elisabeth Esselink, aka Solex, sending part-finished recordings over to New York for the Boss Hog partnership of Jon Spencer and Cristina Martinez to add their punk-blues touches. Ranging from the mad funk-jazz organ of “Eat Here” to the itchy guitar and morse-code synth groove of “Uppercut”. The opener “Bob Bob” is typically eclectic, a sinuous funk groove with Spencer’s strangulated outbursts punctuating cute girl-group vocals. “Dog Hit” is similarly uncategorisable, while “Aapie” adds R&B horn interjections to the mad bricolage of distorted guitar funk. “There’s no sense in getting primitive,” sings Esselink, “I like the way you walk upright!”. A searing blast of perverse individuality in an all-too-ordered pop scene.
Download this Bob Bob; Dog Hit; Aapie; Dirty”
