Mungo’s Hi Fi & YT – No Wata Down Ting

Caledonian reggae heroes return...

When encountering a group as prolific as Mungo’s Hi Fi, it can seem a daunting task to set about trying to separate the wheat from the chaff – or the bud from the stalk and seed, if you fancy some lazy reggae stereotyping.

And with a catalogue that spans from ensemble efforts like ‘Sound System Champions’ or ‘Forward Ever’, to versus plates (like 2014’s face-off with Prince Fatty) and more focused, solo vocalist collaborative long players, it can feel difficult to establish a sense of context for each new record introduced to the sprawl.

The irony of this, of course, is that MHF’s dedication to physical representations of music – whether that be the 2x180gram 12” package that this album is available as, their beautifully crafted wooden scoop speakers, or the gathering of people at their dances – runs counter to the usual narrative of digitisation driving saturation within music.

In reality though, it’s probably best taken in the same way that you might perceive of a record collection or a sound system or a dance: it’s the interlock of the various component parts that gives the whole its character. So, start wherever you please and feel your own way through the crowd because ‘prolific’ here isn’t to be taken as shorthand for favouring quantity over quality or, worse still, having no gauge of control for the latter.

On ‘No Wata Down Ting’, the collective continues from last year’s ‘You See Me Star’, which featured vocalist Charlie P across its entirety, with another album’s worth of songs featuring just the one MC – in this case, Ipswich’s YT. Rather than feeling entirely exhaustive, the single mic man approach gives the record the feel of a dance: hosting through various undulations and tempo changes, rather than delivering from atop each track.

In this sense, it works well and slots nicely into the bigger Mungo’s picture – the highlight of which is arguably the live shows. However, it’s missing the anthem-status tunes that littered early releases (see the Soom T-helmed ‘Did You Really Know’ for a taste). Johnny Osbourne’s appearance on the title track, and ‘Work To Do (feat. Little John)’ come close; but it’s the paraphrasing of Osbourne’s classic ‘Ice Cream Love’ on the former that hints at what the rest of the LP is lacking: a genuinely gripping vocal flow.

While YT’s performance is perfectly fine and recognisable in what it aims to achieve, it rarely steps outside of a batch of vocal cadences and inflections already established by other MCs. The topics covered – clashes, not taking cocaine, denouncing unfounded tough talk – are mostly well trodden too.

The album’s riddim approach – with stripped back arrangements gifting the MC more space to flow out through a track and create the hooks for themselves – is a difficult one to pull off with a lone vocalist, and in this instance may have benefited from the natural dynamism introduced by inviting a wider pool of collaborators.

Ultimately then, this is a likeable batch that will be welcomed by existing Mungo’s fans (unless they’ve already picked up the ‘No Wata Down Ting’ / ‘Ice Cream Riddim’ 7”, perhaps) but is unlikely to draw a swathe of new followers as a standalone release.

6/10

Words: Will Pritchard (@Hedmuk)

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