Posted by Budgie at April 20, 2005 03:58 PM

Track : SEIJI feat. LYRIC L - "LOOSE LIPS"

To mark the release this week of M.I.A's excellent album "Arular", I thought that The Pipe should put up a track from it. However I got to thinking that I'd already linked to some of her stuff, as have countless other Bloggers over the past year or so, and I'd be kind of stuck as to what to write about. Other Bloggers have covered her better and there are numerous interviews with her kicking about just now as part of the promotion for "Arular".

I then remembered reading a pretty indepth interview with her over on Pitchfork a while ago and one of the questions was along the lines of "what producers did you want to work with for the album?". The first name that was mentioned is a guy called Seiji. More importantly, she said she wanted her stuff to sound like a track called "Loose Lips" that Seiji had put out back in 2002. I loved the track when it first appeared but hadn't really listened to it in a while. After listening to it again recently, it definately made sense in relation to the direction that M.I.A then followed. Unfortunately, she never did hook up with Seiji as he thought her music was too "pop"...

Seiji is one of the founding members of the West London production crew, Bugz In The Attic which was formed back in 1997. The producers, musicians and DJs that make up the Bugz took their individual influences and talents and focused on creating quality dance music. In the search for the perfect beat their influences of things like House, Jazz, Afro-Beat, Latin, Soul and Funk combined to encompass what is now more commonly known as "Broken Beat".

"Loose Lips" is a very good example of this kind of stuff. The story goes that an instrumental of this track was knocked up for playing at "Co-op", the club ran by Bugz In The Attic. The club features the cream of the crop of like minded DJ's and producers of the calibre of Marc Mac and Dego (of 4 Hero fame), Domu, Alex Attias, Modaji, Charlie Dark and Phil Asher. Apparently when the track with it's broken beat, 303 bleeps and sirens was played, a female rapper in the crowd called Lyric L jumped on stage, grabbed a mic and then proceeded to freestyle over the top. Seiji was impressed, hooked up with Lyric L and within 2 weeks the track was out in the shops on the Bugz' record label Bitasweet.

The Bugz are still going strong with their trademark remix work and many other projects under many a pseudonym. They also narrowly missed scraping the charts at the tail end of last year (beginning of this year?) with their "Booty La La" track.

Finally, a "Fact Of The Day". When putting this post together I was curious as to where the phrase "Loose Lips, Sink Ships" came from. Apparently it was created as part of a public service "Security Of War Information" campaign during World War 2. It was a reminder to Americans to be discreet in their communications to prevent restricted information being leaked to the enemy...

Go Buy : Various Artists / Bugz In The Attic - Fabric Live 12
Go Buy : Bugz In The Attic - Got The Bug
Go Buy : M.I.A - Arular

Go Visit : Bugz In The Attic
Go Visit : Lyric L
Go Visit : M.I.A

Feel free to leave a comment about this track in The Pipe section of the forum

Ta,
Budgie.