In full stride, with nothing but a set of stinging beats knocking genres from pillar to post in front of him, Hervé is the optimum bass shogun, rocking 4x4 burners that set off a chain reaction of combustible rave, dubstep, breakbeat and Baltimore hybrids. The first Ghetto Bass, disc one in particular, absolutely rocked the shop as one of 2009’s biggest hitters, so with 34 new low-ends to cause dancefloor potholes, the man with remixes and sideline projects coming out of his armpits is odds on to have ear surgeons upping their patient intake from Mega Mega Mega’s aurally obliterated disciples.
Again starting with Jack Beats as curtain raisers with a splendidly, gut-grumblingly focused take on Passion Pit’s Little Secrets, Hervé’s recent Zombies is the man in snapshot: if the scissor-sharp bass with the rasp of a cyber lawnmower sounds formulaic, it’s a gameplan that still animates the likes of No Sleep as an absolute four to the floor beast, swinging from a winking sci-fi riff treated contemptuously with a hustling bassline shunt. Never under-haggling on funkiness, Reset’s mixes of Cassius and The Count & Sinden and Kill Light’s chunkily enjoyable The Sound understand that a serious bassline doesn’t need to take down speaker rigs completely, though, as the compilation later bears out in terms of new styles and buzzwords born out of supposed forward thinking, the Tropical edit of Hot City sounds directly swiped from a mid-'90s Ministry annual.
Chucking in B-more flagrance, the full throttle ferocity of tribal house antagonist Hot! Drum Attack and MJ Cole’s battering ram team-up with L-Vis 1990 ravages the bells and whistles silliness of Hervé fiddling with Yolanda Ne Cool’s Afronuts and the glitterball filters applied to The Mane Thing’s otherwise bucking mix of His Majesty Andre. Hervé proclaiming ‘yes sir, I can boogie’, as if mounting the wrong set of decks with stuttering disco giddy-ups from Voodoo Chilli and Fake Blood, brings good fun once the disorientation has subsided from first listen.
As per volume one, disc two is approved to not play by the rules. A Made Up Sound’s dub-rave grapple Rework puts environmental health on red alert, breaking ground for tentative inserts felt by Joy Orbison, rough, minimalist but perilously direct skanks from Mele, dubstep haymakers landed by The Others and Sukh Knight, and Hervé turning Steve Aoki’s annoying catchiness into a much darker, less plasticky kettle of fish. Seeing how far the script can be stretched, this and H’s mix of The Temper Trap’s Science of Fear, start at standard dubstep neck breakage speed before opening up into 4x4 house ransacks, doubling your money in a dedicated bid to have chiropractors on call at the dancefloor’s edge.
There are downturns however: for the renewals of garage sureshots, a pretty pony update of Zack Toms’ Bring Me Down gets followed by an unconvincing remix of RIPGroove that only goes to show that no one should mess with Double 99’s speed garage standard (and that Haduoken! have won that particular battle as well). Ghetto Bass 2 finishes with old skool workouts from Redlight, Hervé’s Blaze It, and High Rankin and Sub Focus under the dismal sleeve label of ‘nu-jungle’. Breakbeats and bass from circa 1993 that reopen a can of worms by simply booting up old studio settings: don’t be surprised if a slew of original jungle represses and convenient revamps follow, as well as everyone jumping on and knocking out cheap homages. When Redlight’s Feel So Good kicks off, the angle is refreshing, but when all clumped together, rumours begin to circulate that dance music has run out of ideas despite Hervé’s generally exciting prompts to the contrary.
Tracklisting:
Disc 1
1. Passion Pit-Little Secrets (Jack Beats Remix)
2. The Glamour-Love Burn (Max Morrell Remix)
3. The Count & Sinden-Elephant 1234 (Reset! remix)
4. Kill Light-The Sound
5. His Majesty Andre-Peep Thong (The Mane Thing Remix)
6. Voodoo Chilli-Check Out Our Groove (Ghetto Bass Remix)
7. Fake Blood-I Think I Like It
8. Cassius-Youth, Speed, Trouble, Cigarettes (Reset Remix)
9. Hot City-Hot City Bass "Tropical Edit"
10. L-Vis 1990-United Groove (MJ Cole Remix)
11. Max Morrell-Murder Sound
12. The Warrior Project (Herve and Stanton Warriors present)-Don't Bring Me Down
13. Tim Deluxe-Ripgroove (The Count Remix)
14. Hervé-Hot! Drum Attack
15. Yolanda Be Cool-Afronuts (Douster remix)
16. Hervé-Zombies
17. Orbital-Lush (Herve's Tree and Leaf Remix)
18. Herve-Avenging Angel
Disc 2
1. A Made Up Sound-Rework
2. Four Tet-Love Cry (Joy Orbison remix)
3. Joy Orbison-Hyph Mngo (Original Mix)
4. Herve-No Sleep
5. Mele-Dancer
6. R1 Ryders-Rubberband (Funkitek Mix)
7. The Others-King Pin
8. Sukh Knight-Diesel Not Petrol
9. Steve Aoki -In The House (Hervés Burning Down Your House Remix)
10. High Rankin-Occupation Pimp And Gambler
11. The Temper Trap-Science Of Fear (The Count (aka Herve) Remix)
12. Nneka-Heartbeat (Chase & Status We Just Bought A Guitar Mix)
13. Redlight-Feel So Good
14. Herve-Blaze It
15. High Rankin-Apocolypse How
16. Sub Focus-Last Jungle