The brand new monster mash up of Brighton’s Eric Kleptone is called Uptime/Downtime and was released on the stroke of midnight (Greenwich mean Time) January 1st to get the new decade off to a flyer. It can be downloaded free from The Kleptones website along with their back catalogue of classic bastard pop.
24 Hours released in 2006 remains for me The Kleptones’ masterpiece – the soundtrack a day in the life of an everyman – but this new work is also inspired.
One of my favourite tracks, Come Again, audaciously features the following samples : The Beatles – Come Together/ Dezo – Y’all Know What It Iz/ Lil Wayne – Best Rapper Alive/ Beastie Boys – No Sleep till Brooklyn/Daft Punk – Robot Rock/Rare Earth – I Just Want to Celebrate/Queen & David Bowie – Under Pressure/Cypress Hill – Insane in the Brain/John Lennon – Power to the People/Boston – More Than a Feeling/Freeez – I.O.U./Criminal Element Orchestra – Put The Needle to the Record/Art of Noise – Close (to the Edit)/S’Express – Theme from S’Express. Over 8 minutes all these tracks blend seamlessly mixed with great skill and great respects for the originals.
This plundering is technically illegal of course but,if I were one of the artists, I’d be flattered to be included in the mix. EC is not out to satirise or undermine the tunes but, on the contrary, his heightened shuffling actually enhances them. For its humour of the samples and cut ups, it reminds me a little of The Cuban Boys, much adored by John Peel in the late 1990s.
It comes across as a labour of love rather than an act of sabotage. Plans are afoot to release video mash-ups of the tracks on the album. One is already out, aptly titled Welcome Back:
