Artist: Head Honcho
Title: Medicine / Hoot
Label: Jukebox In The Sky Records
By: Simon Jones | 15 May 2003
Tracklist:

• A: Medicine (There's Grace In Madness)
• B: Hoot

Head Honcho "Medicine / Hoot"

Shem McCauley follows up the recent Slacker single 'A Million Dreams' with the latest material from his Head Honcho project. Who can forget the excellent 'Walls Of Jericho' which the man like championed for months and months, causing many vinyl junkies to try trading in their grannies for a copy! These two new cuts, 'Medicine' and 'Hoot' have followed suit with support from the man like once more, as well as others including Digweed, Satoshi and Sander, and here's why..

As soon as 'Medicine' starts off, you know immedieatly this is going to be another dark and quirky cut that we have come to expect from Shem. Rough crunchy beats and drum layers mesh together to form a slick tribal groove within which druggy sounds and effects conceal a slightly menacing spoken vocal where some guy speaks about 'grace in madness'. As trippy synths rise from the rocking groove, you will understand just what he means as the ethnic flavoured chant takes over before being swept away by the bouncing beats, with the occasional distorted vox sample escaping through as the track disperses the nearer it gets to the end. Yet more twisted aural medicine from the Slackman!

'Hoot' keeps up the odd factor with samples that sound like they are lifted from the 'Freddie rhyme' in Nightmare on Elm Street sifting through a driving loop that forms the bass of the track. Rattling synth lines and eerie voices slide across each other over the top of the rolling groove, with delay filters dragging out the sounds that sit deep within that burst on the surface as the craziness of this strange track unfolds. Stopping dead in it's tracks, the strange sounds within grow in prominence during the break as the bass builds back up underneath, the groove becoming more disjointed until the track grinds to a halt once more.

If it's one thing that can be said about Slacker or Head Honcho tracks, its that they always seem to have some kind of surreal appeal that cannot be explained. These two tracks are no exception, both being tripped out druggy house cuts that have come to be Shem's signature. If you are looking for something a little different, look no further.