Send "Jahcoozi " Ringtones to your Cell 
| Pitchfork |
 One of the fun things about dance music in 2010 is that genre barriers seem increasingly obsolete-- the idea of limiting oneself to a particular style or country is almost laughable at this point. Jahcoozi, a collaboration between German producers Robot Koch and Oren Gerlitz and Sri Lankan vocalist Sasha Perera, take this global approach. In their tracks, dancehall riddims, glitch-hop, and experimental techno rub up against each other like long-lost pals.Jahcoozi's first two records, Pure Breed Mongrel and the awesomely titled Blitz 'n' Ass, took an aggressive line to the dancefloor. Rapid-fire beats and grime mixed with Perera's in-your-face political emceeing for a visceral, gritty sound. It was danceable, but ultimately disruptive music. But with Barefoot Wanderer, their first release for Berlin's BPitch Control, Jahcoozi appear a good deal more subdued with a style that leans heavily on dub-- both the classic Jamaican variety and its modern-day digital equivalent, dubstep. Mostly the shift works. There's a variety of song types and distinctive collaborators who bring tempo swings, but the prevailing mood is sort of a downtempo saunter, made even more spacious by Perera's milky vocals. (Massive Attack's Mezzanine is a good reference point in this sense.) Tracks like "Barefoot Dub" and "Lost in the Bass" set echo-chamber reverb alongside glitch-y techno, creating an interesting tension between traditional King Tubby-style dub and more progressive current electronic sounds. Most of these songs are good, but occasionally there's a dip in the dynamism of the production-- "Zoom in Fantasize" and "Barricaded" just sort of drift by without making much of an impact....full text |
| Inthenews |
| What's it all about? This is Jahcoozi's third studio album following on from previous releases, Pure Breed Mongrel (2005) and Blitz and Ass (2007). Who's it by? Jahcoozi is Sri-Lankan/British MC Sasha Perera, producer Robot Koch and Israeli born Oren Gerlitz. The trio began performing on the underground circuit in Berlin in 2003 and after their Fish EP received airplay on John Peel's BBC radio show the gigs began to come thick and fast. Since then they have released several EPs, three albums (including Barefoot..) and have supported Aphex Twin, Chicks on Speed, , Jamie Lidell, Tiefschwarz and play Fabric tonight. What the others say "Edgy without being in your face, Barefoot Wanderer is music for the punky reggae afterparty." - Tomas A Palermo, residentadvisor.net "Jahcoozi have built a stronger essence and a reaffirmation of their sound with this full-length. Without any doubt an interesting album for our barefoot generation." - José Luis Mejía Razo, Soundrevolt.com So is it any good? Barefoot Wanderer is an album of digitised dub that, as the name might suggest, takes influence from traditional dub and ragga as well as more contemporary electronic genres. For those that haven't heard Jahcoozi before their sound is glitchy, broken dub topped with soft and sedated vocals. Robot Koch's production is reminiscent of dub producer the Bug and is wonderfully intricate, full of layers often sends the tracks spilling into electronica territory thanks to sparse sound-scaping, oblique beeping and static soaked snares. The tracks that immediately stand out on the album include purposeful and marching Powerdown Blackout featuring M Sayyid, Msoto Minds featuring Uko Flani with its thick punchy beat and throbbing bass and Watching You (Deadbeat stalker dub) complete with a roving robotic sample that snakes across the track menacingly. Barefoot is let down however by a number of tracks that seem to plod along rather pointlessly and provide very little in terms of reward to the listener. Opening track Barefoot Dub sounds like little more than a standard dub track drizzled with some out-of-the-boc electronic samples and Perera's vocals are indeed breathy and hypnotic but the track is void of any 'drop' or indeed climax. The Cure cover of Close to Me is either inspired or utter madness but will no doubt please a select few. However a trio of tracks at the heart of the album; Lost in the Bass, Speckles Shine and Read the Books are rather unremarkable and fail to bring any sense of urgency or energy to the record. And while Jahcoozi are not trying to compete with some of the more bass heavy artists out there from the dub step realm you can't help but feel that a live band such as this should have more fire in their in their sound. Barricade sadly sounds like a rather prosaic aping of Bjork and while Watching You is a great penultimate track, the overall sensation you get from Barefoot Wanderer is that of an anti-climax. Disappointing on record, you could say, but something suggests that seeing them live may be a different experience....full text |
| Urb |
| When you consider the artists associated with the term “Intelligent Dance Music,” the label is somewhat of a conundrum; the idea of someone racing to the club floor for Boards of Canada or Squarepusher is simply head-scratching (and chin-stroking, pun intended). An amendment is in order, as the songs of Berlin-based trio Sasha Perera, Oren Gerlitz and Robot Koch aka Jahcoozi comfortably fits with “music that moves your body, lyrics that stimulate your cerebral cortex.” However… Largely eschewing the rapid-fire glitch, lo-fi grime and dancehall rhythms of their previous albums, the group hinges the latest chapter of their (r)evolution to a half-time dubstep aesthetic, though carving their own notches into the monstrous wobbling sub-frequencies, spacious chords, echoing claps and textural virtuosity of said genre. That is, beats and bass makers Koch and Gerlitz place their stamp by poking holes with faded Melotron and shimmering accordion blips (for their cover of The Cure’s “Close to Me”), tempo shifts (“Read the Books”) and reverse Gamelan (“Wasteland”). Matching the mood, Perera is less jabbing and overtly political than before, now appearing as a chilly, anesthetized queen who accepted the tumult of her people and settled on patient indifference. Wait, they slowed down the tempo and the MC favors metaphors over calling out obese teenagers (“Gameboy,” from Pure Breed Mongrel) and cultures that forbid virgins from the use of tampons for hymen preservation (“Asia Bride Magazine” from Blitz ‘n’ Ass)? Isn’t this counterintuitive to the draw of Jahcoozi? No: the trio – plus guests M. Sayyid, Barbara Panther, Uko Flani and Guillermo Brown – prove that they are as effective with the aural mystique and hypnosis perpetuated by Lee “Scratch” Perry and Massive Attack’s Mezzanine as they are with making audiences lose their minds on the dance floor....full text |
Jahcoozi lyrics
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