Originally released in 2002, Trouser Jazz was the hotly anticipated follow-up to the Manchester-based DJ, producer, record collector and cartoonist's barnstorming Ninja Tune debut, Keep It Unreal (1999). As a DJ, Andy Carthy aka Mr. Scruff plays across the board, moving between soul, funk, hip hop, jazz, reggae, Latin, African, ska, disco, house, electro, breaks, soundtracks and loads more. As a producer, he makes music that draws on these influences, with a large dose of cheek and good humour. His cartoon drawings illustrate gig flyers, posters, record sleeves, T-shirts and occasionally accompany him at gigs as live animated visuals.
Trouser Jazz - recorded largely at Carthy's home studio with engineer Danny Evans - neatly encapsulated Scruff's ethos, his joie de vivre and his inimitable combination of tight-knit funk, expansive sonics and dance-floor dynamite.
"The album is a real mixture of moods and tempos, just like my DJ sets, twisting my influences and inspirations into different shapes," explains Andy. "It was also the time when I started to develop my low-end addiction, as tracks such as 'Ug' and 'Shelf Wobbler' testify. The collaborations were enjoyable, too, from Bernard Moss' one-take flute that Seaming & Sneaky built a track around on 'Valley of the Sausages,' Braintax's medieval working-class themed rap on 'Vibrate,' Sneaky's bass and Andy Kingslow's abrasive synth solo on 'Shrimp' (which was the first of many tracks we did together), Andy K again on 'Champion Nibble,' Niko's glorious & touching vocals on 'Come Alive' and Seaming's otherworldly vocals on 'Beyond.' When I listen back to Trouser Jazz, I can feel the fun and energy from those studio sessions."
It's tough to pick out highlights in a set of consistently top-drawer productions, but "Shrimp" is an inspired fusion of Mizell Brothers cool and Roger Troutman's squelchy funk; "Come Alive" is a triumphant, soulful jaunt blessed with Niko's vocal and rooted by the most hypnotic bassline on the album. Meanwhile, the outright dumb "Ug" is "a giant teddy bear of a track... the subcutaneous bellow of the bassline, the Flat Eric keyboard squawks and slithering hi-hat snaps propel it to the top of the heap" (Pitchfork). Undoubtedly it was the aforementioned characteristics that made "Ug" a stone-cold backroom classic.
