Germany, home to the dirndl, bratwurst, dodgy ‘taches and David Hasselhoff. Also, bizarrely, home to two of the most successful black music acts in Europe.
Using a combination of German, English and Patois, the Berlin raised eleven-piece Seeed make up one of those, (Gentleman being ze uder, in case of any curiosities) and with the release of their fourth album Next!, they hope to build on the three gold certified albums that precede it.
To help them along the way, vocalists Enuff, Eased and Ear collected verses from the UK’s Kano, France’s Saian Supa Crew, America’s Cee-Lo Brown (Gnarls Barkley fame) and Jamaica’s dancehall queen, Lady Saw.
Along with the international aspect covered, Next! has a truly diverse feel, a product of years toying with reggae, Hip-Hop, and rock, before settling with dancehall, all performed by the groups 8 musicians, banging away at drums, blowing their own trumpets, and tickling the ivories. In an almost perverse way, it’s most simple to compare Seeed’s position in the computer generated production land that is Hip-Hop and dancehall, with that of McFly’s in the ‘shite’ music genre. The ‘live’ instruments sound very fresh, and the four stringed bass making a great difference to Cubase rendered 808’s.
An already popular track, ‘Waterpumpee’ sees Seeed going over the Doctors Darling riddim, an instrumental they released a few years back which got hit hard by dancehall generals Capleton and Sizzla and even got the palms of Jack Scorpio sweaty.
Other tracks include ‘Thing’, performed alongside Saian Supa Crew, and features twice on the album, with both an English and French version, apparently, but both versions seemingly indifferent aside from the chorus.
‘Slowlife’ is another double drop, with the original version featuring on the main portion, the 3 Seeed MCs meeting the snail-pace BPM with an almost lethargic vocal output, and Kano lending his chords to the bonus version, adding a grimey feel to the Berliners.
The brass introduction to ‘Goosebumps’ is just fantastic, kicking in before the MCs again take over, in true dancehall fashion, creating rhythmic flows to accompany the simplistic beat patterns.
Included in the bonus tracks is also a live version of ‘King Rodriguez’, from their hugely successful Berlin Arena 2006 appearance, ‘Dickes B’, a turbo-charged single from Seeed’s debut album ‘New Dubby Conquerors,’ and the addictive bsslines of their 2004 track Papa Noah.
Seeed’s attempt to sound un-Jamaican are somewhat, in my opinion, thrown out the window, but what has been created is an album full of riddims and vocalism that could, and should, see them become more well known outside of the Deutschland borders, and not a moment too soon.
Next! is out May 7th on Four Music.
Rating: 5/5
Label: Four Music
Useful links: www.seeed.info and www.myspace.com/seeed
Words By: Andrew Milner
