Review: Urbs & Cutex - On Our Way (Beat Art Department)

Wherever you are this release is perfect for 'Wherever You Are' -  what'd mean they taken their time? Urbs & Cutex are on their way with this 15-track album, 'On Our Way'.

This 22 year long wait for the reformation of Urbs & Cutex was introduced to us with the single, 'Wherever You Are' featuring T.R.A.C., 'Bird Of Paradise' and ' Memories' (see review HERE) has elements of where Urbs left his album 'Im Geheimland' (see review HERE) but the Cutex association has put instrumental hip-hop in a bit of a Viennese Whirls (Ed. OK. we'll let you off repeating this).

'Wherever You Are' is still perfect for the summer park strolls with echoes of Bob James and rap wy New York MC, T.R.A.C. (who has worked with Visioneers).  In fact, the mostly instrumental album has a lot of 'Marc Mac presents Visionneers' jazzy-beats quality about it.

In addition to the dreamy 'Bird Of Paradise' and 'Indian Summer' (Ed. what no sitar!), 'Make It Real' and the title track is full of the summer haze of jazz horn and it's very chill-hop West Coast throughout; perhaps 'Recognize' could be a West Coast with Cuts and 'bone (love it), a bossa 'Watch Out' and 'Lovegod'.

Urbs & Cutex (aka David Schuller and Paul Nawrata) have expanded their downtempo 'Peace (Talks!) & Love' hip-hop theme with tracks like 'Bubbles', 'Not An Angel In The Sky' featuring beatiful flute (at 6 minutes long - in fact, it's great to see such an album with many tracks over 3 minutes long in the 4/5 minutes range) and Compost's sub-label, Beat Art Department, is an ideal podium to host this album and the timing for a 'new' Austrian "Kruder & Dorfmeister" couldn't be better timed.

BUY LINK: https://BAD.lnk.to/UrbsCutex-OnOurWay

Artist:  Urbs & Cutex 
Title: On Our Way
Release date: 13th June, 2025
Label : Beat Art Department
Catalog Number  BAD016 
Format: Digital / Bandcamp

Review: Subverse - Set Free (One51 Recordings)

Subverse might sound punk/death/dark bass but you'd be surprisd as One51 Recordings newest release is full of R&B/soul and some great vocals.

So who exactly are Subverse?  Alex Pascal, (co-founder/producer songwriter of The Layabouts) and vocalist Maddy Collins have re-ignited Richard Earnshaw's Duffnote label off-shoot One51 Recordings (an enterprise Earnshaw and Daniel Jones set up).

For a quick(ish) 101 on One51, check out 'Decade 2003-2013' compiled and mixed by the team which is so "Gilles Peterson Golden era" in parts, that's one major DJ that going to be supporting 'Set Free'. 

You'll recall, the One51 track 'Bring Me To Your Life' feauring Heidi Vogel, was selected by Cyndi and Christian (aka The Handson Family) for their BBE, 'You Need This! An Introduction to the Handson Family compilation (see review HERE). 

'Bring Me To Your Life' came out in 2004 so don't wait for twenty years before 'Set free' is discovered for an overlooked classic.

Whilst Alex and Maddy can perform as an acoustic duo, 'Set Free' has a strong lyrical content and comes over most powerfully as the downtempo 'Artworx Edit' with Earnshaw at the controls.  'Free Flow Vibe Mix' get heavy on the organ and conga's for a dancefloor dub-out (Ed. old skool Talking Loud/Galliano influenced perhaps?)

Apparently there's a Subverse version as a band planned so expect to see them giging soon, perhaps at a Gilles Peterson currated festival soon.

Artist: Subverse

Title:  Set Free 

Release date: 28th February, 2025

Label : One51 Recordings

Catalog Number : OF027

Format:  Digital / Bandcamp