Is Tropical / Egyptian Hip Hop
Where: Start The Bus // When: 28/01/2010
by Ben Street
Currently receiving a lot of good press, Egyptian Hip Hop are a bunch of high-school kids from Manchester with big hair and a lot of potential. On NME’s Radar 2010 Mixtape with Double A-side release ‘Wild Human/Heavenl’y they’ve already landed some desirable slots, supporting larger niche acts such as Delphic and tonight’s headliners Is Tropical.
Their sound revolves around psychedelic, spacey synths, cheap 90’s keyboards and a mixture of repetitive programmed and live drum patterns – with quavering, monotonic vocals layered on top. Like a fledgling Late Of The Pier, EHH are wonderfully peculiar and eccentric to look at but tonight they lack any real character on stage and the short pauses between songs feel awkward as a slow song at a high school disco. Listen to ‘Heavenly’ on the Myspace…
www.myspace.com/egyptianhiphop
At around 12.00 a particularly melancholic bunch of young men take to the stage, it’s the headline act; Is Tropical, a couple of hours later than they were billed to play, they explain their van had a blow-out on the way down and with the help of a particularly anxious looking sound man, hurriedly set up their equipment…
It’s almost worth the wait, with their synth soaked, sea shanty, power pop blaring from the PA, they stomp about, making the stage theirs and displaying a truly impressive level of musicianship. With a new single out on limited edition 7†and available to download now, they are another band brimming with undeniable potential and authenticity.
