SittingOvation

Tha Doc – Champion Dub / From Home

Posted by alex on September 5th, 2008

http://www.myspace.com/thadiggydiggydoc

The Doc seems to have it more or less nailed down. A solid catalogue of great tracks that span enough of a range to give you the confidence that he can produce the goods when required. Presented with such a vareity, I’ve chosen to highlight Champion Dub and From Home.

“Champion Dub” is a fairly dubbed-out minimal track, but instead of the long etheral pads that some opt for, Tha Doc has favoured a rather more varied selection of random blips, noises and pads to accompany his perhaps a little agressive vocal sample.

There’s this juxtaposition of a stocky jah-warrior with a crusty sort of ‘RA The Rugged-man’ flow and feel, over the top of this long sub, which draws out this minimal sample-scattered dub track. It’s essentially musical Marmite. You love it or hate it.

Fortunately I love it!

“From Home” is a very different feeling track. The start gives us a familiar blip, delicate hi-hat and pads, but the percussion quickly becomes skittered, and more of a break forms over the drums and pads. A breakdown just for kicks, and a vocal sample takes us back to a heavier but similar loop. The bass tentatively throbs under the breaks and there’s almost a drum & bass feel about some of this production. It’s perhaps more evident in tha Doc’s other work, but I get the feeling there was a drum and bass producer (or at the very least fan) who moved to dubstep in some way.

I think most will find something enjoyable in the Doc’s stuff, and from what I can see he’s more or less on top of things, so I say ‘good work fella’ – and no doubt we’ll be seeing more from tha Doc’s camp in the future.