Blockhead: The Music Scene

For his fourth album as Blockhead, the New York alt-hip-hop producer Tony Simon scores an imaginary film, achieving a noirish density with a swagger and darkness similar to the work of Barry Adamson. A 12-track instrumental sequence called The Music Scene nods, intentionally or not, to the promiscuity that characterises so much music being made today, with forays into multiple genres, from funk, pop, rap, soul and jazz to post-rock, all fed through what might be termed a malign mincer. The intriguingly titled Which One of You Jerks Drank My Arnold Palmer might suggest a skittish album (and Tricky Turtle's Pinky and Perky souked-up funk certainly has a spring to its step), but The Daily Routine's setting of the words of real, disputatious drug addicts to rumbling bass and sawing strings is more representative of a notably unflinching album.