A collaboration between 23 Skidoo’s Fritz Catlin and Simon Crab, ex of Bourbonese Qualk, Big Daddy is a brilliant blend of electronics and live instrumentation. I picked up their album, Bomb Culture, primarily for the track Molecule’s Dream – a tide of gentle tribal timpani that washes a shore somewhere between Keith LeBlanc’s Ending and Malcolm McLaren’s Obatala. A mellow melodica and thumb-piano moment, where reverb and delay add a trippy psychedelic sheen. This Cafe del Mar / sunset cocktail worthy tune, however, is a bit of an outlier. The rest of the record is more a hybrid, a marvelous mutation, of dub and rock. 

Chasmophyte, for example, is a collision of analogue drums and percussion, and digi-dub detail. A piece of post-punk skanking, complete with big, bold, Jah Wobble-like bass. Cupid’s Itch is a cool combination of machine and organic syncopation, that could pass for a Steve Cobby outing. Circuits busy chattering, and a sort of afro shuffle in its wah-wah-licked swing. Its bulbous bottom-end just one bleep away from acid. Jazz funk / fusion, via ACR, plus sheets of space rock guitar. 

The other highlight for me is the heavy, heavy Warlords. A heroic dose of druggy dubwise. A somnambulant slo-mo steppa, whose industrial crash and clank is a mighty mix of Babe Roots, Dub Trio, and the Sabres Of Paradise. Stoned to say the least.

Big Daddy’s Bomb Culture is out now on Offen Music.