CD reviews: Ninja Tunes/Flavour – Downtown Science – 44

Tony Simon (aka Blockhead) specialises in a kind of evocative instrumental hip-hop that’s not too far removed from the early work of DJ Shadow. Downtown Science – his second album – is Blockhead’s musical portrait of his neighbourhood, downtown Manhattan, and it’s a multi-layered album you find yourself coming back to for both concentrated listening and background audio nourishment.

Downtown Science easily eclipses any hip-hop associations it may have. In fact, apart from its slo-mo beats (a kind of couch-potato funk that you couldn’t possibly dance to) and a few production techniques (sped-up and slowed-down voices, judicious sampling) there’s nothing to associate this record with the hip-hop genre. Not unlike label mate Amon Tobin, Blockhead constructs a kind of soundtrack to a non-existent movie, in which he brilliantly steals, dusts off and reconstructs an odd array of influences (Broadway musicals, Beatle-esque riffs, burbling funk synthesisers, Hollywood orchestras, ancient jazz horns) and somehow makes sense out of it all.

Unlike Tobin, however, Blockhead never dives off into a frightening noise-scape or a drum and bass rib-rattler; this album is thematically cogent and accessible to anyone who can handle the relative absence of lyric content.

A real bonus is the accompanying DVD, on which Blockhead’s equally brilliant first album, Music By Cavelight, is presented on hour-upon-hour of video clips. The result of a competition, these are impressive if largely (visually) of an abstract nature. Three filmmakers present their own visuals to go with the album, with six extra short films. An utterly brilliant package. GS

Overall: 4/5