There is little that is left to be said about one of electronic music’s true heroes, Keith Tenniswood. With a multi-decade career that has seen him invent and reinvent a variety of sub-genres via his long-serving aliases that famously include Two Lone Swordsmen alongside Andrew Weatherall and the subject of today’s premiere, Radioactive Man. New material from Keith in any of his many guises is always exciting, but today, we are discussing Keith’s sixth studio album – “Jam Out The Kicks”, on his own Asking For Trouble imprint. Let’s get into it.
With this being a long player there is always a lot to unpack both sonically and conceptually, Tenniswood makes this a lot more straight forward and ultimately more enjoyable. As he explains, this album did not take the usual studio based recording process, “The album has been made in reverse, live jams and sequences are then taken into the studio and developed into trax. An interesting if long way to go around crafting these mostly dancefloor tunes. Hence this album has taken 4 years to develop and finally nail.”
With the Radioactive Man moniker centering around the breaks and electro in all its many shades, there is also more than a few stop offs in more ravey territory. Each and every track speaks volumes of Keith’s unadulterated and unwavering influence on the UK scene, but we have ear marked “Yew Got 2 B Yew” as perhaps the track of the release. This was a very hard decision, but the raw energy levels that pour out of every element of this track is undeniable. Ramped up BPM’s, ravey stabs, soulful yet incessant lead vocals, and a flow that few can match, this is also a bit of a track of two halves. The second half of the track still maintains the initial white hot break beats, but the main break introduces wickedly filtered percussion and Michael Cleveland’s long since legendary vocal. The results are devastating.
This keenly trained eye (and ear) for what transfers from dancefloor to studio and then back to dancefloor is etched into every corner of this LP. From emotive openers “Under The Counter” and “See Above”, Tenniswood soon turns his attention to bass and drum with the advent of the snarling “Colourful Language”, Detroit electro leaning “New Balls Please”, and the undulating bassline of “The Clappers”. With this LP being the culmination of four years worth of touring and collecting ideas and jams which were then transformed into fully formed tracks it is truly satisfying to trace the lineage of this album as a live performance. With energy levels rising and falling like his masterful performances that have peppered our scene during 2024, we can guarantee that “Sinkhole” featuring Suade Bergemann, Chloe Raunet, and Ali Love would have left a mark on the memory of the crowd at the likes of DImensions and Houghton.
With dying embers of this bitter sweet melter fading slowly “The Doldrums” snaps you back into full focus short but very sweet high tempo salvo. Outrageous bass tones threaten to overthrow society while acidic synths and off a wonky collection of off kilter chimes come along for the ride and possibly to cause more trouble along the way. With most of the album following a more breakbeat route, it is always refreshing to see the inclusion of a more techno orientated drum structure and we begin the final of the three discs with “K Whole Pop” as it steps into the fray with blown bass notes and dastardly filtering synths.
Now getting on towards the business end of the album and more wigged out ideas begin bleeding into the album and the glitched out “Whatever Mate” and the impervious “Dread Carpet” wind up the mind before the final purge of “Do It Till You’re Satisfied”. If this is your introduction to Radioactive Man then there could not be a better point in his career to join him as Tenniswood clearly has not lost his love for performing or releasing music. As impressive as this album is sonically it is also a very nice collectors piece with the stunning Pop Art style graphics that adorn the outer and inner sleeve courtesy of long time collaborator Lung.
You can pre-order “JAm Out The Kicks” by Radioactive Man now from Bandcamp.
For those in London there is a few dates for you to catch Radioactive Man in action…
Launch party (Live A/V Set) Saturday 23rd November
Cartulis 15 Years at Fold, London: https://ra.co/events/1839877
Jam Out The Kicks Album Tour 2025 – Live A/V
fabric, London 15th February + more dates tba
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