Review | “Fuck No” by Steve Cobby

Τhe latest album by one of the most important musicians of our times

Artwork by Gavin Connell

Steve Cobby is a legendary artist who should need no introduction: based in Kingston-upon-Hull in the UK, he's been making music since the mid-'80s but achieved true iconic status in the '90s with his seminal Pork Recordings label (co-founded with Dave ‘Porky’ Brennand) which was active between the years of 1990 – 2004.

The now classic imprint not only became highly influential and critically revered within the acid jazz, trip-hop, and chill-out genres, but more crucially it served as an expansive sonic universe starring many of Cobby's numerous aliases, frequent collaborations and a seemingly endless constellation of affiliated groups.

The leading charge of this cavalcade of excellence was the mythical duo Fila Brazillia (Steve Cobby with David McSherry), who were the main attractions of Pork Recordings' stellar line-up, featuring releases under various other Cobby pseudonyms or music by kindred spirits of equally impressive quality, such as Solid Doctor, Heights of Abraham, Baby Mammoth, Bullitnuts, Moss and many others. Nowadays, a selection of these are released by Déclassé, a new imprint dedicated to the continuation of the Pork Recordings legacy.

A highly prolific artist, Cobby has tirelessly released record after record over more than 30 years, both solo and not, and what's most important is that his consistency is infallible: all of his albums and singles (bar none) are unfailingly brilliant and highly recommended as essential discography for any lover of contemporary music, sure to stun even the most casual listener since his expansive output is unwavering in terms of its reliably excellent quality.

Surprisingly, for a producer of such abundant volume, Steve Cobby manages to create music that is simultaneously highly specific in terms of its urban nature while also, paradoxically, his sound is relentlessly shape-shifting.

This formal contradiction has become a signature of sorts: yes, his music can be classified as an exotic amalgam of funk fused with many other elements, a hybrid cross-pollinated from sophisticated variants carefully curated from an ever-expanding taxonomy of urban genres ranging from jazz to electro and anything in between.

However, that classification would be a reductive denomination, not precise enough to adequately describe the multi-faceted aspects and eclectic sensibility that makes each Cobby record such a rich, rewarding listening experience.

The vast referential context of his multitudinous influences is as imposingly erudite as it is irresistibly seductive, never once reducing the aural experience to a dry discourse exhausting the creative limits of connoisseurship with abstruse academic self-regard.

What is constantly in flux regarding Cobby's music, and thus articulates the vacillating nature of his sound, is the highly idiosyncratic way he recombines, rearranges, reconfigures, and juxtaposes his myriad references.

Teasingly, a playful interchange of genre tropes is also often present: sometimes the music is dance-floor orientated, even specifically tailored to a niche mode like jungle, while at other times, even within the same LP, the tenor might veer off to adaptive interpretations of other, often disparate (yet inexplicably never incongruous) styles, including elaborate experiments in unexpected directions, like library music, abstract ambient soundscapes or even vibrating disco bangers.

Pleasure, even hedonism, seems to be the philosophical principles guiding Cobby's creative ethos.

His atmospheric patchworks are sewn together with exceptionally composed and meticulously intricate percussion arrangements, their complexity supported by equally delicate bass lines whose bounciness never strays too far from the joyful bop of a super-cool dance floor.

Metronomic in terms of its strict timekeeping, the rhythm section nonetheless remains always effervescent and playfully contrapuntal, providing an ambiguous pace, shimmering with florid beats that roll, break, skip, drop, and flutter, their agile indeterminacy of stuttering syncopation supporting the most ethereal of flutes, chords, pads, and synth washes.

Alternatively, at his most experimental downbeat phases, Cobby deconstructs the club culture by appropriating its horizontal, dancefloor-adjacent manifestations, researching the sonic aesthetics of spaces that are fecund for musical exploration, like chill-out rooms, back-to-mine mixtapes, dub sound-systems, and after-parties, accessing nightlife-related contexts where electronica and experimental music have a place beyond keeping the dancers grooving.

Having said that, it's by no means simple music for partying or aural wallpaper for social gatherings, but an extraordinary sound mosaic of jewel-like complexity and precious craftsmanship.

Soulful elements of elegant funk, laid-back jazz, moody trip-hop, gentle electronica, sexy electro, soothing ambient, fragile breakbeats, and R&B-infused hip-hop are never absent, yet their presence is always non-committal, adding a volatile perfume that serves a sui generis purpose, an ineffable mystique that defeats any traditional purism.

Representing nothing else but its own radiating core of expansive warmth, the music of Steve Cobby is fundamentally abstract, unmoored from any hard-edged specificity, spurning the limiting outlines of any definitional signifier.

Exemplifying this elaborate approach in the service of excavating a convincing version of authenticity from the dark mines of aesthetics, the opening track of “Fuck No”, features a splintered cut-up of vaguely jazzy snippets strewn over early '80s electro-funk beats.

It's instantly recognizable as the mature work of a great musician whose entire career could be seen as an esoteric reinterpretation, amalgamation, and transubstantiation of his love for a specific mood that transcends styles, eras, or even the bare essentials of music creation.

It's a track illustrating a complex image, melding the early '80s boombox verve of Grandmaster Flash with the unpredictability of a radio dial flickering between pirate radio stations transmitting rare grooves across the sultry summer airwaves of some imaginary rare vinyl utopia. Yes, again, one could label this track an exercise in electro-funk but that would be a reductive description of its richly evocative textures and winsome charm.

In the final, slow-burning track, a lone clarinet tenderly improvises around the edges of a sweetly melancholic melody, while the softest yet most complex percussion arrangement discreetly tingles, lazily claps, seductively bumps, and provocatively shimmers in the background, evolving and mutating along the turns and twists of an elegant configuration held together with a few, sparse, lazy guitar licks.

As good as any other entry point to the magical world of Steve Cobby, this latest album is a perfect soundtrack for the lazy summer days ahead, offering seven mid-tempo tracks of lambent languor, laid-back sensuality, and as always, the utmost peak of musical sophistication.

Text written by Panagiotis Chatzistefanou, Berlin, May 2024