Track Of The Day: Blunted Dummies - House For All (Definitive)

 

Elegant in its simplicity innit. ‘House Music For All’ has an unforgettable hook which rests up three or four core elements, at least that’s what I can identify. The point is that, as one of the Discogs comments goes: “Still sounds fresh as hell today and is a testament to the fact that it doesn't take 1,000 synth lines and build ups at once to fill a floor.” And from another comment: “the original contains samples of the following tracks:

- beats from "Earth People - Dance" (1990)

beats from "Brand Nubian - All For One" (1990)

- synth + rides from "Bobby Konders - The Poem" (1990)

- vocals from "The Blackbyrds - Happy Music" (1975)

vocals from "A Tribe Called Quest - Check The Rhime" (1991) 

maybe also the title was inspired by that Brand Nubian album ("One For All" -> "House For All”).”

In any case, we’ve all been on a dance floor at some time somewhere and heard the omnipresent vocal sample that this tune is built around. It doesn’t get deeper than that because it doesn’t need to. That underlines its existence as a perfect piece of layering that doesn’t need layering. Listening to this track you’re constantly waiting for something to happen, which doesn’t. In the end it’s unnecessary, but the tension and it not getting out of second gear builds and builds until its impossible to ignore. The only thing that would improve it would be to make a longer edit, but maybe the stress of waiting for it to explode would then be too much.

Track Of The Day: Nuages - Move (F Comm)

 

Nuages were Ludovic Navarre and Shazz. Two of the founding fathers of French house and sonic polymaths. This track from their ‘Blanc EP’ is a great piece of protocol wild pitch. So much so that I wouldn’t be surprised that, in some parallel world, DJ P[erre admitted that this is what inspired him. Anyway, it’s possible for more than one person to have the same great idea. ‘Move’ is elegant in its simplicity. Vocal sample which are gents, groans and cries combine with loping percussion, synth washes and that dominant wild pitch stab to create a track that has echoes of techno and garage but which is undeniably house. Pitch it down ever so slightly and give it an extra two minutes and it’s presque parfait. One of the other tracks on this EP, ‘No Work Today’ was featured on these pages almost exactly three years ago. There must be something in the autumnal air.

Track Of The Day: Son.sine - Karuna (Nurture/Delsin)

 

One of those tracks that if you’re not playing it on vinyl, you’ll be asked why. That’s not because one format is automatically thought to be superior to the other. Just that the brittleness of this recording causes it to capture every little blemish in the ether. This is highlighted by everything being thrown into sharp relief by the kick, something that also doesn’t manage to escape the high end heist. It’s another dub techno record Jim, but not quite as we know it. Everything shimmers on this record, which isn’t something that one normally writes about this genre. One which seems to have had no embryonic passage, or pupating stage. I love the way the percussion suddenly gathers momentum at around the halfway mark. Something which gives the track a new leash of life and, in some way, does mark a stage of advanced development. Only this concerns the specific tune though, and not the whole genre. The sounds are very familiar of course, but they’ve been put through a blender of sorts rendering them into some sort of spiky, flat relief. Now I know that is an oxymoron, but it’s all I could think of in a bid to say something original about a genre which in spite of its relative uniformity, still manages to confound. Music for looking out over a dark horizon.

Voyage De Lux w/ Alex Downey - 28.10.26

1BTN · Voyage De Lux w/ Alex Downey - 28.10.26

Dub Cleanse 4

 

isitbalearic..? · Dub Cleanse 4

Track Of The Day: Donnacha Costello - Pistachio B (Minimise)

 

It’s. Ore than twenty years ago that the ‘Colours’ series was released on Irish producer Donnacha Costello’s own Minimise label. It was clever marketing because something in the record buyers psyche would mean that one would never be content with owning a few of them. It was all or nothing. Thankfully this was also an easy choice as the music is brilliant. Emerging around the time that the minimal movement was starting to gain some momentum, it rode that wave but was always a little bit more well-rounded. And this from the ‘Pistachio’ release shows why. It’s well-crafted dub-techno with extra layers. Like a perfectly baked mille-feuille, it just keeps on giving. Layer after layer it unfolds revealing something that little bit different on every level. I’m waiting for the whole series to start appearing in random sets so that the prices rise exponentially. Because at the moment they’re dirt cheap.

Track Of The Day: Popol Vuh - Aguirre I (l'acrime di rei) (Cosmic Music)

From Herzog’s incredible ‘Aguirre, The Wrath Of God’, and another contribution to a Herzog film on these pages, Popol Vuh’s spellbinding, symphonic medieval wall of sound is a proper trip. If you haven’t seen the film, put it on your list. It, like the music, is a truly transcendental experience.

Track Of The Day: Reedale Rise - Littoral Zone (Delsin)

 

While I’m readjusting to normal life after Sheffield, here’s a lovely piece of sublime profundity from Reedale Rise. Simon Kent, aka Mr Rise, is from Liverpool and early in his career produced some lovely pieces of deep electro and mid-nineties UK IDM-inspired goodness, like this. It’s one of those releases that I forgot I owned, and am obviously very glad I do. Saying the unsaid in such an eloquent, electronic way, it’s one of those tracks that sounds like the machines are in communion with themselves, producing a sophisticated language that no one really understands, while communicating with each other through melancholic, melodic vibes. A great one to open or close a set with. Or, should you so desire, to accompany for sitting in the library of Babel, surrounded by ancient tomes and sipping a strong, smoky Armagnac. 

Track Of The Day: Gazelle Twin - Belly Of The Beast (Anti-Ghost Moon Ray Records)

 

Last night I was in Sheffield to see Cabaret Voltaire’s final UK gig. And while it was great, emotional, all those things you would expect, I remember the performance of the support act, Gazelle Twin, just as much. And I’[m annoyed because I didn’t catch all of her set. Just the final twenty minutes or so. Still it was more than enough to elect a lot of interest. In the short time she was on stage I was completely transfixed. A compelling, sonically unique performer.