Various Artists - Ed Rec Volume 2

Showcasing the best of cutting edge Parisian dance music is a dirty job but I guess somebody’s got to do it. And that’s exactly what Pedro Winter’s Ed Banger Records do. In fact “dirty” is certainly the order of the day in Paris* with the recurring theme on this collection of grimy beats being one of pure filth.

Things have hitting Eiffel Tower-like heights for Ed Banger in the last 12 months, having had a hand in sound-tracking the clubs of 2006 with Justice’s stupidly popular, genre straddling remix of Simian’s ‘Never Be Alone’. Along with the growing reputation and general ubiquity of DJ Mehdi and Uffie in London and beyond and having Levis’ own veteran ornithologist Mr Oizo on board, it is not so much the sound of the underground anymore for Ed Banger, but the sound of the moment.

And so, as if to educate those poor hapless souls who may imagine Ed Banger has something to do with long hair and heavy metal, this collection provides a 45 minute sample of just what it’s all about. There are beats that can be ham-fistedly forced into a variety of pigeon holes within these 14 tracks – electro, crunk, rave, grime and more – but each fits into an overall Ed Banger mould of, for want of a better word, “cool”.

There are, unsurprisingly, tunes throughout. Uffie is up to her usual shenanigans, espousing about crack pipes with her potty mouth on ‘Dismissed’, while the New Ravers will have smiley faces for Mr Flash’s ‘Disco Dynamite’ and SO ME’s KLF style Klaxons mash-up ‘Golden Skans to Interzone’. Alongside cuts from heavyweights Justice and Sebastian (with his soundtrack to a steelworks that is ‘Greel’) and stable-hands including Krazy Baldhead, Feadz and Vicarious Bliss, there is plenty of evidence that Ed Banger is keeping its finger firmly on the pulse. The only “stick out like a sore thumb” moment is the ill-advised 80s disaster that is Mr Flash’s ‘Eagle Eyez’. Thankfully this is a mere sub two minute bridge between industrial-sounding rave tunes and the filth is quickly restored.

In the world of underground dance, it doesn’t get much cooler that Ed Banger Records, and, as with all label samplers this provides a decent overview of what Ed Banger is all about. At 45 minutes, though, it falls somewhere between a proper mix album and a good length compilation and if this is your thing then you’re far better off picking up the individual tracks or albums than the teasers on offer here.

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*NB At this point I’d like to point out how difficult it was to resist a joke about the French not washing here. I hope you’re all proud of me.


First published on rockfeedback.com. See it here.