Rack Monkey swinging from the 7" shelves
	03/03/03
	Ex-Ninja Tune singings Up, Bustle and Out started life as the kind of electronic jazz outfit not uncommon in their native Bristol, and nor, it must be said, on the NT roster. Following a flirtation with Cuban music, their current project on Germany’s Unique heralds another shift in direction, this time drawing heavily on Jamaican sounds: Runaway Hague is essentially a showcase for trumpet maestro Andy Hague, whose carnivalesque improvisations sit nicely against a familiar backdrop of dubby, bongo-boosted percussion and weighty bass. Excellent stuff. www.upbustleandout.co.uk No such changes of tack for The Kills, whose mission is to rock like twilight-years JMC and to be considerably better looking. Which latter they achieve with little difficulty. Fuck The People offers more gritty, punky blues riffing and curled-lip vocals; confiscate Black Rebel Motorcycle Club’s treble strings and you’re more or less there. You can tell it’s cool because it’s a flimsy, featureless one-sider with only a stamp on the sleeve as identification, and because it doesn’t need a B-side or indeed any proper packaging. Just a rushed pressing of a pretty good song. Perhaps their rent’s due. www.thekills.tv
	Previously unknown to us, Sgt.Rock makes a welcome entrance with The Peace Song and Jum Jum, both unapologetic analogue monsters. The former is all acid squelch and low-end divebombs, and if the latter’s Azzido di Bass whoops, fat kid bass and fists-in-the-air rentabreaks aren’t in the next series of Spaced Simon Pegg and Edgar Wright are very silly men. Big, no-messing floor-fillers for the baggy of pant and the phat of lace – I bet he’s from Brighton. www.sgtrock.co.uk Right, two birds with one stone: Yes, Chris TT, it is funny to call a song, or indeed anything, Eminem Is Gay. But no, that isn’t a pretext to release any old sub-Supergrass junk you dashed off in five lazy minutes. “They caught Shady being a lady”? It must have sounded like such a clever idea down the pub. Next time leave it there. And you, Pitman: after two crushingly funny releases, could you not have waited for one or two amusing phrases to strike you before recording a third? No? Then let there be no fourth, because It Takes Tea is totally shit. Period. He’ll turn out to be an ex-Eton alternative comic anyway. They all do. pitmanworld@hotmail.com
	www.the-echo.com/ Click here to discuss these reviews on our music forum. Previous Rack Monkeys: February 2003 January 2003 November 2002 October 2002 September 2002 August 2002 July 2002
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