Back late 96 I think, I witnessed a live set from Mike Paradinas, supporting the Aphex Twin at Birmingham's legendary Que Club. Having pursued his releases for a couple of years by then, there were some surprises in the set, not least of which was the mutated techstep d&b assault of many of the tracks he played. And with this EP, he actually released something which related to that live show. The retro lounge jazz of Gary Moscheles and the disappointingly weak d&b efforts of "Urmur Bile Trax" had failed to live up to expectations raised that night, but three quarters of this EP pretty much did. The energy of "real" drum-n-bass was actually retained on its way through the mutation process this time, and the chopped breaks and trad whistly organ u-ziq melody line of the title track make a very promising start to the EP. And hey, it's not too long either (unlike many of the rambling efforts on Urmur Bile). A 3-note ASDIC line, "Megaphonk"-style bassline and plastic synths introduce "Hanky Pokery", which sounds like a refugee from "Das Ist Ein Groovy Beat Ja" until the ridiculousy fractured break kicks in. I remember being taken aback by the half/double speed rhythm programming at his live show, and this track comes close to reproducing that. "Jiggery Panky" keeps up the good work, kicking off with a strong breakbeat, not exactly like something you'd have heard from the junglist massive at the time, but something more rather than something less. Some of the programming seems to be a bit "for the sake of it" a la Plug, rather than evolving naturally out of itself like Squarepusher, but the overall effect is quite strong. This is quite a fragmentary track with various breakdowns a snippets of melody. Only the final track "Worcester" disappoints due to its oddly dissonant chords and sloppy rhythmic feel (probably intentional but it doesn't work for me) There's a really nice funk break buried under there, but I can't really listen to this.