Muggs / Dust - Anti Records
Little Axe / Hard Grind - Fat Possum

Over the past year, Anti Records has turned into one of those rare things, a real record label with an identifiable style. Before global corporate conglomerization, record labels were more than logos, they had real people with an indentifiable style. If you saw a Stax label, a Sun label, 4.A.D., SST, On-U Sound, and so on, you had somewhat of an idea what the record would be like.

In past year we've seen releases from Tom Waits, Solomon Burke, Nick Cave and now Muggs from Anti. You may recall Muggs from Cypress Hill. With this album, don't go looking for hip-hop beats. This is more of a UK record than a US one, bringing to mind the style and approach of Massive Attack circa "Mezzanine".

With "Dust", Muggs has blended trip-hop production with rock beats from Pink Floyd. Aside from a guest vocal from Everlast, and one by Greg Dulli, the vocals are by Amy Trujillo, and Josh Todd.

An ambient, headphone album, "Dust" has elements of shoegazers such as Ride, rock overtones like Garbage and Curve, and a definite nod to UK producers such as Adrian Sherwood.

In the UK, dub and reggae production has had a greater influence than in the States (because they have the metric system?) in part because of the influx from Jamaica as part of the Commonwealth. This has given rise to the artist/producer in the UK, instead of the band as in the US (and I would argue that Bill Laswell is the exception which proves the rule). One of the most prominent is Adrian Sherwood. His On-U Sound label virtually defines dub and ambient outside of Jamaica. He has produced ambient, dub, electro, industrial, roots reggae, and some very hard to define stuff (hmmm, lets combine the house band for Sugarhill Records with industrial noise punks and video artists, yeah, it'll work). Now, with Little Axe, Sherwood does the blues.

Like Anti, Fat Possum is a unique label with a distinctive style. A blues label which lives in the present, Fat Possum continues to come out with records which ain't the same old blues crap. The latest release is "Hard Grind" which features the guitar and other instruments of Skip McDonald, a long-time player with Adrian Sherwood.

"Hard Grind" applies dub production and sampling to blues totally revitalizing them.

You can hear samples and streamed versions of both these releases at the Anti web site.