Ifan Dafydd – ‘No Good’

Too good to be a pseudonym but too ridiculous not to be, Mr Dafydd came to my attention this morning while I listened to the superb Jamie xx Essential Mix for BBC Radio 1. Dropped in at track number 3 in a phenomenal assemblage of originals, refixes and deep cuts, ‘No Good’ was an instant attraction for many reasons, predominantly as it presented the recently-deceased Amy Winehouse in the kind of post-dubstep arrangement that Sir xx is legendary at. The upper/lower octave treatment, used to notable effect on xx’s remixes of both Adele and Florence Welch. You can’t really help but pay attention.

Trust Jamie xx, that kid with enough clout to chill with Gil Scott-Heron without breaking a sweat, to bust this out for the uneducated masses like myself. The Internet is abuzz with rumours that Dafydd is actually James Blake, a fact made all the more believable by the fact that the accompaniment here could easily have been lifted from one of the latter James’ early EPs and sounds a hell of a lot like ‘CMYK’ or even his incredible tweaking of Destiny’s Child’s ‘Bills Bills Bills’. On that note, we’d also like to congratulate the divine Ms Beyonce Knowles, who today announced her pregnancy at the VMAs. Now, Blake didn’t invent the genre by any means, and judging by this Facebook page, he is actually his own man who just so happens to have a really unfortunate name. In fact, it’s a testament to his musical ability that someone with a last name that would fit better in a surrealist painting is getting traction.

‘No Good’ takes a tiny snippet of Winehouse’s original and reworks it into a swelling, accelerating mass that gets better with each listen. The parts all come together in what seems to be a completely random order, beginning with snare breaks and building that triplet bass line with variously pitch-modulated versions of the late chanteuse’s voice. Rather than waiting for one sample to finish, Dafydd layers them on to create this otherwordly and quite challenging texture that is almost entirely comprised of Winehouse, though you don’t notice it at the time. By the time that the low bass beat actually kicks in, you’re too lost to know where you are. Synth chords blare and modulate over the top of the whole thing, the samples harmonise over each other and suddenly we’re in the nether-world. Dafydd’s split single is being distributed through my favourite record store on Earth, Rough Trade, famous for championing faceless electronic identities like Zomby and SBTRKT. So who knows who the guy is.

My advice? Forget the chatter and turn up the sound.

Ifan Dafydd – ‘No Good’

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