KNIFEHANDCHOPTKO From Tokyo Record label: Tigerbeat6 Format: 12" Release date: 26 August 2002 Billy Pollard is out to lunch – permanently. Either that or he’s awfully clever. All I know is this: few people have had the laughs at the record industry’s expense quite like he has. Combine hardcore techno, dark and furious jungle, video game sound effects, and the latest Top 40 hit and you have the Billboard chart nemesis known as Knifehandchop. His early claim to fame came through a string of 45s on the Irritant label. “Bounty Killer Killer” was a head-splitting hybrid of gabber and dancehall chatter, while “Dance Mix 2000” put Destiny’s Child, Pink, Eminem, and the Vengaboys in a blender at over 200 beats per minute. (Can’t you just picture the stack of “cease and desist” letters looming over this man while he eats his breakfast?) It was only a matter of time before he joined the rest of the snot-nosed upstarts at the Tigerbeat6 label. He continued his rhythmic mayhem with Respect To All The Haters, taking on DMX and Outkast in a beat battle royale and even setting sometime aside for some booty bass jams. TKO From Tokyo is a block of C-4 on wax, allowing Pollard to rush through some ideas at lightning speed and leaving the tape rolling to catch all the action. Various cronies get to mess around with tracks as well. “Bounty Killer Killer” gets remixed twice: Kid 606 goes the synth-laden route while DJ Aneurysm unleashes an all-out sonic assault. Venetian Snares is caught in the mix also, giving “Not For The Billy” his trademark psychotic drum and bass disemboweling. Ambush Records hardcore high priest Noize Creator brings the ruckus remixing “Vertical.” Best track title goes to “Hooked On Ebonics.” Count on Knifehandchop to always be into something – as long as the lawyers don’t catch up with him first. {steve crognale}
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