ITCH – Manifesto Pt. 2: We’re All In The Gutter
aaamusic | On 11, Mar 2013
Following the disbandment of The King Blues on the 3rd of April 2012, and while the whole rock industry and fans were in shock at the announcement, Jonny “Itch” Fox confirmed that he would started a solo project, releasing music under the name Itch. His first EP, Manifesto Pt. 1: How to Fucking Rule at Life was released online on November 26th, 2012. Now the anticipated 2nd part has now been released on the 11th march 2012.
The ‘new’ artist Itch, as he has now named himself after the disbandment of King Blues, has started his solo career well with the release of his first EP – incorporating sounds from many different musical genres, from punk, pop, reggae, folk, and dub-step. Fast approaching one of the UK’s finest songwriters, Itch is unrestrained by anything other than the limits of his own energetic imagination, and is developing into a most authentic songwriter.
The new EP Manifesto Pt. 2: We’re All In The Gutter features the tracks, Diplomat, Gutter Stars, Soul and Like I’m Drugs. The first, Diplomat Is a mixture between a semi-heavy guitar riff and rap lyrics, the message is a slightly political/humanitarian theme, focusing on the lyrics with dynamic words such as “contradiction” “elevate” “illusion” showing how reality is an illusion and how he is trying to get this message across that we are all humans, not diplomats. It gives a really strong feeling of uniting the people and getting people to realise that we are all free human beings and that diplomats and diplomacy isn’t the right way to go and not what he wants to be like. The urgency of the lyrics increases throughout the song as the way in which he sings the chorus becomes more stressed, urgent and elevated.
The second song in the EP, Like I’m Drugs starts with a very bass-y, dub-step feel, going into more rap. The song has a very high tempo beat, with the melodic, sweet female vocal which is included in the chorus. The lyrics are basically talking about, as the title suggest, drugs and how people are taking them more often – they give a better high and the song, in a suggestive way is adding the hype of the drugs. Especially with the metaphor “mind is melting” showing the suggested feeling of how the drugs are positive in this sense. Lots of bass and turn tables are included with a very hip hop feel towards the end. However, this song is very repetitive.
The third song on the EP, Soul, starts with elevated rap lyrics, a beautiful drum beat, which is repeated throughout the song. Around about 2:40 the song changes, the beat drops and a sweet sympathy of soothing music kicks in. The message of this song is about the economy being tough and not giving up on him and “having faith even though it rough” the beat then kicks back in with more raping, with the last two lines emphasised in a elevated tone.
The last song on the EP, Gutter Stars – with rap lyrics, like the other songs – has a deep meaning to do with people and their habits, and the way people are. This song has a darker meaning as it talks about how the world is dead, natural and human disasters including the illuminatia and Mafia. It has a deep lying guitar riff with a another bass-y drum beat, which continues through the whole song. Many more violent and dynamic words used – the point is just being emphasised to get the point across to whoever is going to be listening to it.
EP two was (also) free through independent record stores across the UK , Wednesday 6th February, before being made available digitally on March 11th it was released for people to collect. EP two comes on limited edition, hand painted numbered flash drives, each one unique.
Samantha L Grimshaw
