Roni Size ~ Return To V
Setting aside Gabba’s
monolithic punch, the visceral momentum of Jungle remains unequalled. Yet,
in the face of seemingly inexorable change, the music has become little more
than a becalmed niche market, superseded for a few years by UK Garage and
lately by Grime and its siblings. Some breakbeat producers have rolled with
the punches, some have faded away, but only a few have persisted and developed
their style. Which may explain why it’s been some time since the world
last heard from the diminutive Bristolian breakbeat supremo, Roni Size. Size
was one of the biggest names on the scene and responsible, along with Goldie
for popularising the music without sacrificing any of its core values. 2000’s
In the Møde came with guest spots for Method Man and Zack De La Rocha.
Return To V sees Size continue and extend this approach with every one of
its 18 tracks featuring a different guest vocalist. The cover design depicts
Roni Size as high street mannequin, limbs arranged in purposeful forward stride
against a Photoshop collage of looming towerblocks. The effect is a little
unconvincing and doesn’t bode well. However, the music’s tireless
attack is irresistibly cathartic. As the beats race along hyperactively, the
bass drops warp and twist with a pleasingly guttural plasticity under occasionally
teeth-gratingly synthetic backdrops. The whole thing reeks of steroid-enhanced
performance. If there’s a sense of hesitancy to the foregoing, it may
be attributed to the lack of a convincing scene around this album. Size appears
to be the last of the original vanguard still experimenting directly upon
the breakbeat corpus. Seen in that light, Return To V is an impressive anomaly,
its creator doggedly and successfuly resisting the atavistic impulse.
Colin Buttimer
June 2005
Published by e/i
magazine