(Anti)

Music for your inner shouty homeless person

If there was a map of the mixscape with Here Be Rogue Traders marked in red at one end, Tim Fite would be so far in the other direction he’d be on a different map and completely screw up my metaphor. For Fite, sampling isn’t about repurposing and recycling other peoples’ hooks and banking on the fact your target audience is too young to remember where they came from. His samples are instruments and he plays them that way. In the past he’s constructed entire works by splicing together bits and pieces found in the dollar bin at the record store, taking leftovers and making delicious meals out of them. With Fair Ain’t Fair he’s limited the sampling to a light seasoning and added a varied backing band. The effect is to take him close to Tom Waitsistan, a magical land where dumpsters are a percussion instrument and the choirs are full of hobos. The effect is glorious, potpourri songs collaged together out of bizarre elements – country jig, Chinese Opera, quirky Eels rock, classical strings, Billy Bragg’s spare lyrics, Casiopunk, whatever comes to hand. He has a gift for taking all those things and creating something bigger than the sum of its parts, songs that explode into cartoon musical finales and ramshackle hillbilly trailer-park singalongs. If he explores far enough, someday the fringes might become the centre and if it sounded as good as this it would be worth it.

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JODY MACGREGOR

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