Cosmic reggae abounds on Welcome to the Edge, the new album from Youth and Chris Bowsher's RDF. For the Radical Dance Faction strives on, warning us from the enclaves, describing horizons, beer and napalm stained, as birds bestow poison and sunsets are sutures sealing the still burning wounds of the day. Bowsher is South London's John Cooper Clarke as he corrals us and comments on that day's degradation in his resigned poet's tone. His existential dread-locks us in to his soul shattering visions, while composer/producer/ performer and mixer Youth stirs the song soup upto its correct boiling point. This is a new music made at the cusp of invention, fusing style with insistence, as said birds of prey circle and Bowsher Scot-Herons from the cultural cliff-face, watching wisely as each lemming falls. NOTES FROM THE EDGE hazes in, blurring the days that would damn us. The aforementioned needle at this troubled time, pushes red. This album is about the need for renewals bright green but it also signals red as a stop sign. Stop and think as it spirals, its own needle tracking the drug in the dream at its heart. That need to move on is also its own form of stalling, as we must stop to reclaim what we're losing if we are to somehow retrieve hope. This record is rich while soundtracking gutters. It is a printed flag on neon pink vinyl. It is a badge of belief. A go glow. Wake to witness and wear some of its perception and promise. It is both a sign and a signal. And it shows that the edge is abundant. Forget fear. Forsake falling. And know that walking away from a ruin is the method by which castles grow.
