BUC Press

That Exploded: BUC Album Review

Sometimes when set with the task of sitting and reviewing music, you sit down and simply gasp “how the hell am I meant to do this?” This is one such occasion.

British Urban Collective is a project founded by Freeport Records that set up a collective of young musicians in five cities (Belfast, Glasgow, Hull, London and Manchester). This was followed with the building of a start-up recording studio in a community centre in each of the cities which the artists could then utilise. The results of which have been compiled together to form this CD.

The album is split into two CDs with one containing acoustic tracks and the other compromising the electric side. Other than that there is no boundaries put on the genres (don’t expect the acoustic songs to simply be guitar strumming) and the results are rather uneven but there is something for everyone – hereth lies the problem with reviewing it. Anyone who listens to this CD will quite simply be able to identify ten tracks of the 36 that they will simply love. Our preferences fall on the Hull side of bias as we adore the tracks featuring Jody McKenna, Keith Hagger, The Ruperts, The Cliques, Ysabelle Wombwell, and Someone and The Somethings. Partly as our ear is more accustomed to their sound than other songs, but in time we are sure we will be taken by all the other gems that exist on the two shiny discs.

It would be easy to pour scorn on the project from the audition system producing an “indie X-Factor” or, the view peddled by certain sections of the media, that community projects are doomed to embarrassing failure due to the loony lefties that run them. We don’t subscribe to such a view and, although, we can’t rate the positive effects British Urban Collective is having on the communities, it is with great happiness we find the music results more than impressive.