Yo da Cologne…Ancient Astronauts touch bass.

If you like your hip hop tripped out then you’ll do your nut for Cologne’s Ancient Astronauts. The opening tracks in particular (‘From The Sky’ and ‘I Came Running’) are just designed for kicking back in the Summer sun and cracking open a bottle of Weston’s Organic or, as the Press Release has it here ‘…sinking into the sofa and blazing another fat one’. Oh what a wonderful world it would be if everyone did just that. Maybe our MP’s could claim for a bit of ‘erb…on second thoughts I wouldn’t be surprised if half of them already have…Duck Island! WTF. You gotta be whacked off your bonce to come up with that one. Anyway, back to the music. Things get a little livelier with the appearance of hip hop heroes The Pharcyde on the flutetastic ‘Classic’ then you’re straight into drum n’bass territory (albeit a squiffy version of d n’b) with ‘Dark Green Rod’. Fast forward a couple of tracks and the legendary Tippa Irie makes a guest appearance (presumably fresh from sitting on his sofa, blazing a fat one) with the Jah toasting ‘All of the Things You Do’. I defy you not to have a crafty skank to that one...

As a lover of the darker side of hip hop too (Dalek, MF Doom…that kind of snizzle) ‘Oblivion’ is probably the highlight for me though. Featuring DJ Zeph and Azeem it’s an ominous bass heavy cut with some particularly neat word play. The album ends where we came in, back with the trippy spaced out grooves of ‘Surfing The Silvatide’ and ‘Crescent Moon’. Astronautical…but nice.

‘We Are To Answer’ by Ancient Astronauts is out on ESL Music on 29^th June 2009…or, if you happen to be visiting Venus, I believe Bob’s Record Store has a really good hip hop section.