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Dan Le Sac vs Scroobius Pip – Angles
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Upon first listen, some dismissed Dan Le Sac vs Scroobius Pip’s ‘Thou Shalt Always Kill’ as a new version of Baz Luhrmann’s utterly woeful ‘Everybody’s Free (To Wear Sunscreen)’, aimed squarely at ironically-coiffed Shoreditch idiots.
Repeated hearings actually revealed the duo’s debut single to be a lyrically dextrous celebration of independent thinking and a hilarious condemnation of lazy bandwagon-jumping. It also included arguably the greatest line of 2007: “Thou shalt not question Stephen Fry.”
Although it became an alt-anthem in spite of itself, ‘Thou Shalt…’ could have easily been the last eager fans heard of Essex MC Pip and production ace Le Sac, were it not for their abilities behind microphone and mixing desk.
Pip, the man with the densest, most imposing beard in pop, has a formidable set of rhymes that delight throughout Angles. On ‘Development’, he praises Mos Def for rhyming the alphabet, before a mid-song beat switch sees him rap the periodic table to hilarious and exhilarating effect.
This smart spitting, redolent of a suburban Skinnyman or a more long-in-the-tooth Mike Skinner, is used to effectively elicit poignancy on ‘Tommy’, and most notably on ‘Magician’s Assistant’: while a moody soundscape sounds like a scary stagger away from consciousness, Pip chats about self-harm. The result is a better anti-suicide ode than REM’s ‘Everybody Hurts’.
Le Sac’s production highlights include cutting Dizzee Rascal grime beats into ‘Fixed’, meaty trance throbs on the malevolent shoplifting tale of the title track, and his inspired use of Radiohead’s ‘Planet Telex’ on ‘Letter From God To Man’. It’s to his credit there’s as much deft imagination in the music as there is in Pip’s lyrics.
Few could have expected this album to include more than a couple of passable songs on the back of what seemed like a novelty hit. That Angles is worthy of careful, repeated listens is as pleasant a surprise as a hangover-free Saturday.
Lou Thomas
