From Amazon.co.uk
The third album by Brighton producer Req,
Sketchbook sounds roughly like a hip-hop album recorded by Buddhist monks. Not like The Beastie Boys, mind: these are spartan, engrossing instrumentals ready-made for meditative practices. Or, perhaps more realistically, for providing a more spiritual and original chill-out soundtrack than the usual mimsy blandness offered up by that genre. Req has arrived at this peaceful, faintly incense-scented place by an unusual route, having first made his name as a graffiti artist and associate of Norman Cook in Beats International. Two albums for Skint followed, striking for their incongruity amidst the label's internationally renowned troupe of big-beat superstars. Warp seems a more suitable home for him but still, it's hard to think of any obvious kindred spirits. For this is woody, unsteady and strangely affecting music that never seeks to hide how primitively it was made. Roughly-recorded, dulled beats ail and splutter. Tiny cymbals, gongs and flutes drift in from the garden. Unidentifiable stringed instruments are played uncertainly. It could all be a shambles, but Req ensures that the imprecisions signalled by the title are human and delicate rather than annoyingly amateurish. A
Sketchbook, then, where the finished versions would be nowhere near as interesting. --
John Mulvey
