As some folks might say, “Nine years since it all began in Streatham, the king of new dark swing drops his long player. Tracklist and sleeve notes by me, design by Stu, hard graft by Soulja. Unfinished business duly finished”. And you can hear that this is a bit of a labour of love and this compilation of early works sounds anything but old or jaded.

In fact, quite the opposite so whether your into d’n’b, grime, beats or dubstep and don’t know of El-B I think you’d be impressed with this retrospective of the ultra rare white labels, lost remixes and dusty DAT tapes produced from a garden shed in Streatham.

It’s not exactly UK garage and it’s not exactly drum’n’bass but El-B tracks were on compilations like MOS’ UK Garage - The Sound of 2000 along with Craig David, The Artful Dodger, DJ Deek Kline (now known as just Deekline), So Solid Crew et al. As Ghost (with J Da Flex), their sound was not fully Metalheadz or UK garage as you can tell from the opening two tracks from 2000, from a much sort after 12”, ‘The Club’ and ‘Two Thousand’. The best of the Ghost tracks is ‘Lyrical Tempo’, self-described as “the brand new thing”, this could have been on a album called The Roots ofStereotyp and Tikiman! And he took this one step further with the collaboration with Juiceman, particularly on ‘Digital’ and ‘Buck n Bury’ and the track ‘Serious’ (with Rolla) and ‘Cruiser’.

Another leader in the pre dubstep leftfield garage was Zed Bias and before he hit it big with Feel It Out album on Hospital, he had a hit 12” called ‘Neighbourhood’. The El-B’s remix sounds so good, it’s wonderful good and now! And I was doing a Alexander Nut type compilation, ‘Neighbourhood’ the El-B remix would have to be on it; along with the Arabian Sun Ra jazz’n’bass of ‘Among The Stars’.

It’s said that El-B was a big influence on other South London dubstep producers who are better known than Beadle today, like Kode9, Skream and Burial. The CD finishes with some contemporary quick [dub]step tracks like ‘Cuba’ and ‘Amazon’ (that was on the first Tempa Dubstep Allstars mix CD by DJ Hatcha) so it’s good to have the full tracks here.

So this album is a timely release and evidence that good will out in the end but I think I’ll be going back to get the vinyl version to hear the tracks in all their heavyweight glory.

Reviewed: Ammunition & Blackdown Present: The Roots Of El-B (Tempa) Cat. No: TEMPACD 015 Release date: 2nd March 2009
Tracklisting:
1 Ghost - The Club (5;28)
2 Ghost - Ghost 2000 (5:17)
3 El-B - Express (5:16)
4 El-B feat. Jucie Man & Simba - Show A Little Love (5:43)
5 Ghost - Lyrical Tempo (4:59)
6 El-B feat. Jucie Man - Digital (5:17)
7 El-B feat. Jucie Man - Buck & Bury (Original Mix) (5:04)
8 Zed Bias feat. Jucie Man & Nicky Prince - Time Out (El-B Remix) (5:36)
9 Zed Bias - Neighbourhood (El-B Remix) (4:53)
10 Brasstooth - Celebrate Life (El-B Remix) (4:59)
11 El-B feat. Rolla - Serious (5:36)
12 El-B - Cuba (4:51)
13 El-B - Cruiser (5:29)
14 El-B - Amazon (4:56)
15 El-B - Among The Stars (4:36)

Links:
www.myspace.com/ghostrecordings
www.myspace.com/jdaflexdj
www.myspace.com/zedbias
www.tempa.co.uk
http://blackdownsoundboy.blogspot.com/2009/03/roots-of-el-b.html