1 post tagged “skeewiff”

I haven't been very impressed with many online retailers' recommendation systems.  Amazon, for instance, keeps suggesting to me items that I have already bought from them; it's a safe bet that I'll like it, but it's not a safe bet that I'll buy a second one.  Emusic, though, delivers pretty well in that regard.  What solidified my loyalty to Emusic is that it recommended Skeewiff to me.  I'd never heard of them before, but in listening to the online samples I realized I had discovered kindred spirits: they make fake cop show themes!  And car chase music!  And funky organ jams!  And breakbeats galore!  Skeewiff is the London-based duo of DJs/producers/songwriters Alex Rizzo and Elliot Ireland and their circle of musical pals, releasing records and CDs through their own Jalapeno Records label.  They've done a couple of explicit fake cop show themes--"Cop Show" and "Farsky and Crotch"--but I think they capture the milieu best in "Light the Fuse" from their 2006 CD Private Funktion (and the Wet Your Beak EP):

That veers pretty close to car-chase music too, so I've tagged it as that as well.  Spy music too, to cover all the bases.  Skeewiff make simply the best drum tracks around, I think the key to their sound is the liberal use of tambourine.  Forget the cowbell, I want more tambourine!  And how about that logo--an anthropomorphic jalapeno pepper in a sombrero, playing bongos!  Is that super-cool or what?  Someone at Murdoch College in Australia must like Skeewiff as much as I do, since they've used them for the soundtracks of several (well, three at least) videos on YouTube.  You can listen to more Skeewiff songs on their MySpace page, including, finally, a club version of "Man of Constant Sorrow."  Which reminds me of Rednex, but that's a story for another day.