Scritti Politti - Early



I was scanning some new music release page on the internets last week when I came across a listing that made me bolt up in my seat - Rough Trade had compiled a bunch of the earliest Scritti Politti recordings from the late '70s and early '80s and released them in remastered form as Early. I snapped up a copy that day at my local shop, and have been playing it every day since. I first encountered the band when I heard The "Sweetest Girl" on the radio, and was fascinated by it's rudimentary drum pattern, killer dub bass lines, gorgeous melody and the remarkably odd voice of Green Gartside. It remains of my faves today. I was sold, and bought up the ensuing 45s (with their ultra-cool covers that parodied product labels like Dunhills and cognac bottles) and LPs, where over the years they turned into a slick, Arif Mardin produced synth funk act. I never got around to buying any of this older stuff though, so for me this compilation is a real boon. Most folks who know Scritti from their super polished and funky mid '80s stuff would probably be surprised to hear some of this earlier stuff. It's raw and ragged, though still full of those funky touches and reggae flavor. "It sounds like some anti-produced labour of negativity, kind of structurally unsound and exposed." is how Green himself describes it in the liner notes on the CD cover. Doubt Beat is a good example of this dynamic - scratchy guitars, dub bass, propulsive post punk beats (all of the drummming is fantastic on this record) and a very catchy chorus. You can definitely hear inklings of where the band's music would end up. My "buy of the week"!