This is the archive of gabba.cc, one of the first mp3 blogs.
RnB just ain't what it used to be....

Shouty pop nonsense..

I find the insignificance of this track profoundly moving, it has sense that time has been suspended - stuck in The Walton's theme or forever walking home in the snow.

REWIND #1 from 2002, krg's signature track.

"We all know this track but it's irrepressible Hip-Pop spangle hasn't dimmed for me. It demands celebration."


The only Christmas song we'll upload I promise, a lovely slice of twee electonica from twee electronicas man of the year, Opiate, producer of Bjorks album and his own sublime releases, as featured on the 'Seasonal Greetings' compilation from Mobile recs.

Gabba Garage soundclash, Simon Reynolds Single of the year, and rightly so..

Jellyroll's out-of-tune bass insistence and 2-D chorus sends Snoop's unsavory crew slamming and zapping across the city.

Creepin' and rollin' - the mike and flo lead this deadly simple casio dancehall

One of those tracks I can't resist cueing up on my car stereo and singing along to when people ask me for a lift home - hand gestures, syncing the gears with breaks and everything - a full-on performance.

A sample of the excellent Dub Reissues on the Wackies label..

Post-something S.Y. press 'Refresh' with another effortless rock-cool anthem. Rekindling the spirit of 87, for me.

Homeward jaunt with Xmas references, sleighbells and Brian Wilson's timpany rolls, and makes the point that inspite of these trapping.... it never matches the memory. I didn't make any non-Xmas track promises ......happy holidays everyone.

Storming Middle Eastern flavoured Ragga..

Soft house, hard ambient? this hollow track's steady-drip tempo creeps, almost tauts itself into a groove before the lulling x-ray harmonies open out the skies; it's inverted house. Perfect for accompaniment for a night lying on your back watching at the space-cruisers pass overhead, but if you can't see them then the stars will do.

Coda for 2002 - a moment's pause. The fade-in (and out) painfully suggest that this is always playing, always has been playing, like the WW2 radio waves echoing around the atmosphere. 2002 has been interesting but we must move on.

Intro for 2003 -a 'valiant little number', as Mrs Thatcher said. It's urgency is undiminished, it's sparkling vision of the future undimmed, so it aptly wraps up my own feelings about the coming year: ambition, trepidation and excitement. See you there!

More miracle-per-second production from Timbaland. Jade plays straight to the unusually exuberant Tim, her monotone shoulders it through as he plays human-Vestax on his multi-track bouncy castle.

Bass Incoming! Bouldering DnB Bhangra, it's the sound of the 2nd Gen, sampling across the decades

Wall-flower house. Opening with sparse claps and an awkward probing synth (perfectly out-of-sync) it stirs and drifts - procrastinating, finding it's moment, gathering support from the strings before surging onto to the dancefloor...... oh! it's finished.

The sound of 2000 and eighty two, so fashionable..

The sound of 2000 and sixty two, full spectrum ambience…

Dazzling sonic geometry from sheffield's SND. Rather than focus in on high-freq minutae of their experiments, the shimmer and spin is harnessed under a precision glitch-step, bouncing us straight outta the lab.

Oceanic, nebulous, indistinct, suspension, levity; all words that describe facets of this track. The presence it evokes without any obvious source bl0ws any sense of scale or proportion. In short - the world slows down, something approaches, it arrives, it leaves, I'm lost for words.

Moody, Beautiful Deep House track from the late James Stinson, one of the great techno pioneers..

I try and fight falling for the mass of retro rock bands with a *the* prefix, but this Drive time Queen rip off kinda caught me out.. ROCK!

Uber-talented Kim finds an unusual harmony of acoustic sounds and break-neck percussion, occasionally pausing to drip melodies before it lurches back to the rhythm calamity. Erratic and raw with an organic sound; for me this evokes nature, its subtleties and contrast.

Mista Sean Paul demands respect. Pitted against a very Neptunes-y thump and crack riddim with loping bass, skittering tablas and a Spice-Girls chorus, he rides the pop back into pounding ragga. Defiant.

Classic PlayHouse, a heady c0cktail with an anachronistic twist - like Electro-Clash on the dancefloor at 'The Loft'. A deep buzz groove sets the angle of ascent and the melodies dangle tantalizingly out of reach, while Harrison's supa-smooth vocal sets the lights spinning.

Shattered no-wave disco - another one of those unheard tracks that could have launched a genre. It stutters and staggers into life with a marshall stack of unfocused energy, then it hits on a bass pulse and delivers sharp unremitting funk.

Nuyorican Salsoul disco from '78, its got those strings..

picture the scene .... pammy and dave watching fireworks over the beach hut in melodramatic baywatch world.

Slinky DX7 pop, warm and deep with a steady tread, it doesn't ask for much, but everything falls into place when the vocals cosy up to those lonely synths.

Electro heart-break - the wounded hard-drive narrator's swansong generates an rare intimacy, with an almost catalytic effect, (I'll never hear those numb chords and awkward electro twerks the same again,) delivering a vital injection of character and feeling. A fulfilling prompt for the potential of the genre.

Steamy disco that slips and bumps, a loose clunky sound with echoes all the way back from early 80s New York.

Something is happening in the state-of-bass. B-line devastation is brought down on a simmering 'Knights of the Jaguar' sample, together with the valiant horns it survives the pummelling but the urgency's sustained by a slamming carriage-return orchestral stab.

Treacherously deep candy-house, a graceful stomp moves through the gluety harmonies and dreaming databanks with barely a ripple, its parabolic groove sweeping us up before we sink.

Chromeos back with more vocoder/digital guitar MOR hits, some how reminiscent of Phil Collins, WoOoo- oh...

Soft yet Hard electro pop..

Tales of the city, a street corner debrief from a fugitive MC. Fraught, tearful with desperation, he puts his case with a pleading chorus. Insecurity, storytelling, street name dropping; it's all welcome.

Slinky tech-noir disco, Air and John Carpenter back-to-back in the dry ice. Comfortably numb, till a sneaking beat (prodigy/meth-man, oh YES!) and data-arpeggios thaw the deadly elegance; together there's an irresistible throb. All evidence how powerful those silver screen projections from the early eighties were.

Here come the BASSS, this subwoofer tester makes me want to have a jeep with a boot full of speakers..

Synthetic pleasures. A disembodied voice over a slippery electro grind tease out the allure of machine s3x. Real or not, I want to meet her.

The Majesticons bring the Bling!

Sci-Funk Fantasy, in spite of a bad case of character over content, this frivolous pop-tat is a offensively catchy but I have yet to fully engage with it's lyrical complexities. Eminently disposable, just don't demand any long-term gratification.

Acid motornik. Ever the pioneer, Laswell steers off the autobahn heading for Detroit, years before the party kicked off. Satisfyingly loose, with a reckless throb.

Bleeding satire, its deadly accuracy neatly skewering dancehall's more questionable material. And it's not Chris Morris.

Pop paradox. On every level: musical, emotional, lyrical, a consensus of all the complex and contradictory feelings that love brings forth. A perennial inspiration, Phil and Ronnie are forever together for these three minutes.

Wounded funk phenomenon. Very uncommon for a band to sound so much like 'The Cure' and still stare you straight in the eye.

Panto garage, some jollys for a friday afternoon, krg thinks its too cheesy, pah!

Main-line acid house: raw, unfiltered and tight. So focussed it can hardly keep up with itself; the aim is true, it doesn't deviate. An awesome affirmation from the dancefloor.

Paedo-pop sensation, but stick with the original version. For me, it's more evocative/ambiguous/direct when you don't understand what they're saying, like ripping patois.

Over bl0wn exotic instrumentalism, the soundtrack to a western or a horror film, I can't decide which..

Neptunes, on form. It just occurred to me that other people might not have been listening to this every god-given hour for the past few months.

pitch shifted vocal perfection, todd edwards only has one trick but i'm still not bored of it.