Coldcut - True Skool Video

Coldcut
True Skool - Featuring Roots Manuva
Video

When you're dealing with Coldcut it's easy to get overloaded with all the information from a long career in which they've never stood still. VJing, art exhibitions, collaborations with minimalist composers, radio plays in conjunction with the Antarctic Survey and on and on. And what gets forgotten in all of that, is that Coldcut's roots are and have always been in the party, right from their early cut-and-pastes, through their classic Eric B & Rakim remix and on up to the present day.

Which brings us to their latest single, the huge and deeply mighty "True Skool". Here, the dynamic duo hook up a crypto-Egypto pop-dancehall beat and let the one and only Roots Manuva announce his appreciation of the Coldcutters all over the top of it, a thrilling, heavyweight combination that puts an instant smile on your face and gets your tush twitching from the moment it starts.

And that's before you've even got onto the mixes, which we here at Ninja think are one of the best collections we've ever put together. Man-of-the moment Sway was so excited by the possibilities of this remix that he submitted two! The pick of them hooks up a kinetic shuffle-clap beat and includes a beautiful little verse of his own to complete the package. Dave Taylor's Solid Groove mix of 'Everything Is Under Control' was one of the highlights of that single and now he returns with his more hooky Switch persona. Truly brutal drumwork resolves into a clipped house rhythm before great waves of bass monkey with your innards. The Qemists have quickly built a rep as the next drum and bass outfit "likely to do a Pendulum" and their fantastic Dick Dale surfadelic d&b smash-up here amply demonstrates why – a complete re-thinking of the original that sounds utterly natural. Big Dada's newest great hopes, Baltimore's Spank Rock complete the round-up. Keeping the Egyptian twizzles of the original, producer XXXchange rebuilds the beat into a sparse hypno-bump while MC Spank Ro' shares chorus duties and adds a quality new verse.

So there you have it – all this talk just to tell you one thing. Play this and you can't help but enjoy it. Not so complicated. Just right.