Beats Working - Harbour Drive (Album)
I guess this is what you would call skip-hop at it's skippiest. Sydney outfit Beats Working have taken the Sydney pride and Harbour Bridge homage and plastered it all over their debut album Harbour Drive. This slick (in both packaging – matte digipack with embossed cogwork? Yes, please – and production – produced by members of the band, JB and Handsome Dan) release is sure to please fans of outfits like Triple J darlings Hilltop Hoods and to the average Triple J listener, be just as accessible as 'the Hoods' have been, if not more so.
By incorporating elements of everything from pop, drum and bass and rock they have managed to put out a fairly versatile record that doesn't just rely on straight up hip hop to please it's listeners. You can hear this evidenced on tracks like 'Hey Lena' (which is apparently their attempt at writing a Strokes styled rock tune) where the rock beats are overlayed with their signature rhyming style and, if the liner notes are to be believed, Phil Emmanuel was responsible for the guitars on the track. Of course, it's not all branching out into other styles and their Australian hip hop roots can really be heard in tracks like Music and Exercise.
Despite these dalliances in to rock and pop, they are boys who seem to pride themselves on their Australian lifestyle and their Australian (not American wannabe) hip hop, and even if it isn't quite my cup of tea I can still pay total respect to that kind of musical attitude. This is a polished released from the Handsome label and it will be interesting to watch if Harbour Drive and Beats Working will be welcomed with as open arms as some of their peers have been.
