Artful Dodger: It's All About The Stragglers

Though it's still negotiating a proper coming-out in America, two-step garage is already undergoing an identity crisis in the U.K., where the genre's many moving parts are being pulled in conflicting directions. On DJ-mixed compilations, two-step's interplay of jungle-like breakbeats, soulful house, and futuristic R&B has gelled into dance music's most inspired development in years. But as England's biggest names move to capitalize on their stardom with full-length albums, the scene's open-mindedness has largely been pushed aside in favor of the chart-friendly trappings of sophistication. While a certain degree of dilution is inevitable when dance music makes the awkward move from 12-inch singles to full-length albums, the infighting between garage's splintering camps is compounded by the genre's uniquely longstanding, manifesto-like celebration of pop accessibility. No act represents the middle ground better than Artful Dodger, a London duo that broke up (with Mark Hill retaining the AD name) after completing It's All About The Stragglers. Comprising vital singles dating back to 1999 and more recent album-oriented tracks, Stragglers provides a mix of two-step at its tuneful best and its lifeless worst. Tracks like "Re-rewind" (which introduced both two-step and R&B sensation Craig David to the British pop charts), "Movin' Too Fast," and "Woman Trouble" boast Artful Dodger's finesse-filled production touches, with smooth bass lines rolling contentedly beneath miniaturized breakbeats that hover and click like bouncing ping-pong balls. Too often, though, those same parts result in overly precious audio couture: "Twentyfourseven," for example, feels a little too close to Soul Cages-era Sting to be mistaken for anything progressive. Artful Dodger has always represented the lighter side of two-step, but without other artists' tracks to counter its airy levity, It's All About The Stragglers is a middling effort that makes for a less-than-thrilling introduction to an otherwise thrilling genre. Stanton Warriors comes from an altogether different garage neighborhood, where gritty breakbeats brush up against the genre's inviting tunefulness. Often called the Basement Jaxx of two-step, the group is big on raw, whiplash snare crashes and busty bass lines that reveal garage's debt to the more reggae-faithful strains of drum-and-bass. On The Stanton Session, Stanton Warriors seamlessly weaves four of its own productions with similarly ruffneck tracks from across the dance-music universe, from garage and jungle to hip-hop and electro. Breathtaking in its cohesiveness, The Stanton Session exposes the counterproductive nature of dance music's genre obsession, mixing different styles in a sonic sampler that seems inspired by Jamaican sound-system culture. On its own, the group effortlessly shifts between menacing darkness (the gut-punching, electro-tinged "Da Virus"), sultry seduction (the diva-sung "Right Here"), and jump-up energy (the mechanically funky "Da Antidote"). Elsewhere, it draws liberally from the annals of tribal-house (Sole Fusion's "Basstone"), soulful breakbeat pop (Unnamed Artist's "Action"), and mellow drum-and-bass (Biological's "Good Old Love"). Most impressively, The Stanton Session exposes the way DJs can tell a story during the course of a set with well-developed shifts in dynamics and tone. More than anything, that story seems rooted in England's elusive search for an indigenous form of hip-hop. Stanton Warriors' love of naturalistic drum sounds and earthy textures makes much of The Stanton Session sound like hip-hop rearranging itself from the inside out. Mixed into Jammin's "Distraction," an MC from The Streets flows effortlessly in a cadence uniquely fitted to garage's wind-blown speed. On a vocal mix of Mr. Reds' "Can You Feel It," the lines get wiped away altogether as rappers (including Busta Rhymes) spit a sizzling take on hip-hop slanguistics. While Artful Dodger moves toward distinguished radio-ready pop, Stanton Warriors remains faithful to garage's style-stew by continuing to add new ingredients. In fact, The Stanton Session is something of a betrayal to two-step garage, because it's quite simply the best dance-music mix of the year, period.