On-Ly: Broth | 4ZZZ Brisbane 102.1FM

- It’s difficult to pin down the balance between the slow, loping hip hop beats and more free-wheeling jazz elements of Melbourne producer’s On-Ly’s work. Otherwise known as Joshua Smeltink, one thing is certain about him here: space has invaded on his latest LP, Broth, the first for up-and-coming jazzy beats powerhouse La Sape. Opener, Noku, is basically a piano solo, but with all the ambient background noises spun up to huge proportions, producing a roughened, snapping surface that is quite otherworldly. The hip hop beats, the jazzy improv and the interstellar affectations are the blueprint here and it’s interesting to see what On-Ly does with them.

This isn’t Sun-Ra, On-Ly’s cosmic inclinations are neither as all-consuming nor as messy as those of that space-Pharaoh. Here, as on most of On-Ly’s discography, the hip hop beats keep things at a steady pace. Parts of the record almost feel like an endless vamp, or like the hip hop breaks that were originally stolen from some obscure jazz recording were returned and folded out into a new song. The band is mostly Josh, with occasional percussive backup on only a couple of numbers. I don’t know whether he tries to recreate his live setup in the studio -which would probably limit his options, musically-  but his willingness to cut sick with crazy jazzy solos is kept firmly in check across much of the early part of the record.

Having said that, On-Ly has always been one to indulge experiments and you’ll find some insane stuff in the fragmented interludes on Broth. Take the impossibly mutated minute of ‘90’s, New York boom-bap that slams your ears like an orchestral warm-up in full force. That’s really pretty cool and harks back to On-Ly’s most hip hop inspired moments, on his debut EP, Dandruff. All of its cuts were sub-two-minute experimentations, evoking the likes of Massive Attack or Young Fathers on the title track and a thunderous Janet Jackson on Urllythinkthat.

As you get further in, the jazz begins to wrestle off the steady, four-to-the-floor and give you some more head-tripping grooves. The wild acid-jazz of Corner House is exactly what the doctor ordered and may be the best cut of the LP. That flips into another interlude, probably the closest we get to the messy wonder of Sun-Ra in its over-the-top effects and off-kilter rhythms.

There’s a huge, twelve minute number, late in the affair, called Get It. It may encourage you to think of On-Ly in a completely different way. The endlessly vamping beat and languid, jazzy adornments are suddenly recontextualised in this newly open space and we’re transported into the krautrock world of Tangerine Dream or Can. It’s a seductively different direction and, as long as On-Ly is dabbling in interstellar travel, I’d highly recommend going full Kosmiche in the future. The sultry Double Edge, with its gnarly, altered keytar sounding solo is a raunchy end to the affair, although, after the expansiveness of Get It, it feels slightly constrained by its three-and-a-half minute time slot.

There’s a lot of interesting stuff going on in Broth, but, if I can strain the analogy, many of the ingredients seem to separate from the whole. It’s particularly the beats and the jazz, which struggle for mastery of the sound at certain points. On-Ly feels like he’s still searching for the perfect blend. It’s a dangerous thing to say to any musician but I think it’s time to just fully indulge and let everything flow together; let it all run free, come what may. That way I think On-Ly’s next outing will be a full-on, Sun Ra Live For Twenty-Four Hours In Tokyo flavour ramen. I reckon that’d be the soup for my noodle.

- Chris Cobcroft.
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