[Audio] Hey, Rube!

After last weeks post covering Billie Ray Martin’s Cabaret Voltaire cover album, where we one again professed our love of the Cabs, we received an enigmatic email in our inbox that we soon worked out was from Hey, Rube! Who, as it turns out, are a electronic project formed by Fila Brazillia’s Steve Cobby and Cabaret Voltaire’s Stephen Mallinder. a couple of months ago they released an album called Can You Hear Me Mutha?, and intricately crafted fusion of Dub, Electro, Techno, Indie-Electro and B-Boy Electro that never fails to surprise or intrigue.

The whole album leans toward Dub and Experimental sounds, but never crosses the line into ambient or self-indulgent. Tracks on the records, whilst ecclectic, bordering on avant-guarde at times, retain a strong sense of groove, drawing from Electro Funk, Kraftwerkian Techno, even occasionally Italo to keep things, for the most part, dancefloor friendly. Opening with the deliciously chaotic Rob A Bank Rob, which lobs frantic tribal drumming, ethereal chimes, Acidic bleeps and Mallinder’s Cabs rasp into a ring and let’s them sort things out amongst themselves, the album drops Mengi Dem Disco Leggi. A broken Balearic Boogie, like a Mediterranean robotic assault. Scissormouth is where the album’s Dub credentials start to rear their head before launching into the full on twisted synth skank of Pimpdaddy. This is built upon, with the addition of more of Mallinder’s whisper, in the space Dub of Kamikazee Peloton. Shaz—–Tate reminds of these guys experimentalist backgrounds as it layers sounds into an organized Industrial cacophony . the album’s longest track, and one of it’s standouts, Rapture, is a nine minute Dup epic, a popping synth echo chamber that is as interesting as it is hypnotic. Which leaves the relaxed, breezy Bali Hai to easy you out of the album. Considering a few days ago we didn’t know this record existed, we are very glad to have been introduced to it. A glorious example of what happens when two talents are left to create freely.