- LBJ is not former U.S. president Lyndon B. Johnson after all, but rather Lazy Bones Jones a.k.a. Jonas Verwiinen who, according to Botchit Breaks’ press release, is “Finland’s number one Breakbeat export.” Judging from this, the label’s 25th vinyl release, that’s about as flattering a tag as Borat’s for his sister: “She is number four prostitute in whole of Kazakhstan!”
It’s a double A-side affair, and first up is ‘Harmaa’ which starts off in the dregs with a Casio keyboard breakbeat if there ever was one. Things do get better as it goes along, however, first with a marginally better ‘growling’ bassline and eventually some rolling guitar loops. It’s at this point when ‘Harmaa’ nails its head on the low doorway of mediocrity and crumbles back to its roots: the guitars get pitch-shifted into a noisy, siren-y, neverending breakdown that draws up a mental picture of the track actually on its hands and knees begging you to turn it off.
On the non-flipside, AA ‘Saqawu’ at least has a slighty more fun title – it kind of sounds like a summer camp! This time the track’s appetizer is a robotic countdown from 8 to 0, which inexplicably gets repeated about a minute later, until LBJ dives into another cesspool of pitched-out guitar samples. Mercifully the drop isn’t as bad as on ‘Harmaa’; instead it’s some unthreatening computer drums and unremarkable bass.
To summarize, both tracks on LBJ’s ‘Harmaa’/’Saqawu’ EP are like watching a train made of Lego slowly build up in stop-motion. But that’s almost too flattering a comparison, because it sounds Gondry-esque. How about watching a computer program make its own breaks? LBJ’s double dose has about that much soul. The most instantly disposable breaks tracks of 2006.