The return of instrumental grime these past few years, as epitomized by the Butterz label and the work of Royal-T in particular, seems underpinned by the realization that it was never the supposed authenticity of grime that made it compelling, but rather its flash and (reverse) glamor, the over-acted, over-extended tinny malevolence of its ridiculous soundscapes offering multihued bruises and contusions both sonic and verbal. And once that general fetish for the over-the-top becomes the object of devotion, why stop at just grime? So, on his debut album for Rinse FM's in-house label, Rinse Presents: Royal-T, the young British producer Mark Taylor offers a more all-embracing vision of rudely extroverted modern garage, unified by his familiar palette of turgid bass tones, decaying synth riffs and shuddering, syncopated beats.
The cheerfully skipping 2-step of lead single "Inside the Ride" measures the distance that Taylor can wander while affirming the essential constancy of his sound, its synthetic pizzicato melody and gargantuan bass drops evoking roughneck boisterousness and ecumenical joviality rather than the feminine bump and grind that was 2-step's primary raison d'être. It's still Royal-T's dancefloor, but he's happy for you to join so long as you don't knock over his beer. This is both a constraint and an asset: Leashed to the boozy exuberance/aggression split personality of the Royal-T aesthetic, nothing here can quite match the untethered heights of last year's glorious house anthem "Cool Down", but it's precisely that strong sense of personality that makes Taylor's work feel so distinct.
Operating between those poles of overt violence and cheerful good times, Rinse Presents… casually touches on all of Taylor's sonic touchstones without feeling particularly diverse, let alone eclectic, though this is surely because the M.O. is so firmly anchored throughout. "Cruel to Be Kind" offers boshing, four to the floor grime, P-Money snarling with clipped economy over the top. "Music Box", a collaboration with Terror Danjah, is precisely the kind of murderous kick-fest you'd expect, not at all cushioned by its rippling chimes and high-pitched vocal squeals. "You're Saved" is the obligatory high dudgeon garage-pop effort, featuring Ruby Lee Ryder singing rather sternly over choral-like beds of synth chords and racing 2-step beats. Put like that, the differences appear obvious, but the gleaming surfaces of the Royal-T sound-- a kind of serrated plasticity-- are so consistent that the album easily blends into a single sustained rush.
Or, if you're not down with this vibe, a samey onslaught. And it's hard to counter that accusation, except to note that approaching these tunes one by one may help the alienated listener grasp the range of ideas on display. "Sax on the Beach" (a digital download bonus) lives up/down to its title, with seven grandiloquent minutes of stirring piano chords, ear-lashing 2-step beats and smooth jazz saxophone whose only purpose is to evoke Kenny G. It's Guru Josh's "Infinity" for a methamphetamine generation. At the other, rigorously physical end of the Royal-T aesthetic, "Work Your Body", a collaboration with UK funky producer Roska, is a perfect fusion of the two producers' styles, combining the internal combustive friction of Roska's grooves with Royal-T's churning synths and general air of nuance-averse propulsive maximalism-- it's as if he just walked into the room and turned everything up to 11.
Even Taylor's attempts at subtlety feel, well, rather blunt: "Missing Aurora" may jack Burial's ghostly textures and precise 2-step percussion, but it's Burial for a Michael Bay film, widescreen and expensive-sounding, and possessing a certain sense of dramatic inevitability that Burial himself would studiously avoid. The unselfconscious largeness of the music's gestures is not an issue of execution, but a fundamental component of Taylor's approach, less concerned with lingering in memory than overwhelming in the moment, offering a sensory overload where bigger, harder, and faster always equal better.
That overarching imperative helps to explain Taylor's fondness for (and loyalty to) grime and garage, whose differing takes on stiff-jointed syncopation are united in their attention-grabbing, anti-naturalist obviousness. The comic drama of these rhythmic contortions-- so easy to visualize as daredevil stunts-- is as much the point as the physical compulsion of the grooves they both create and puncture. When a sudden space opens up in the rhythm, a beat left hanging suspended only to be crushed under a sudden onslaught of kickdrums (and there's moments like this in nearly every tune here), you can hear the producer grinning in delight, and perhaps asking, "ain't I a stinker?"
