Boymerang - Still / Urban Space

This is one Prototype release that I will never be able to forget. I clearly remember having been looking forward to heading down to the Mars Bar all week, as there was a rumor that the infamous Grooverider (Free The Rider, by the way) was going to be playing a set...

And it was the A side of this release that just blew us all away at Speed... We just weren't expecting that darker element to creep into Speed's more ambient atmosphere back then. And with no less than two rewinds we were all marching to the new sounds of Prototype Recordings!!! And wow! What a way to bring a sleeping giant into effect... What the fark were those beats doing??? Someone was chopping them up till they became... Well, just heavily effected militant chops! But it was that Bass line that really cut through the air! Pure distorted power... An awesome track with super way out there sounds and enough variation to keep one hooked. A track that Grooverider caned at Speed and on KISS 100 FM back in 1996 when it was floating around on dub-plate! Superb...

On the B side we hear a slightly more intelligent style Drum & Bass number that uses a really odd 4/4 timing on the beats... Urban Space, though no less abstract than the A side, is a little smoother without the aggressive edge. Lovely synth stabs layer this track into a progressive high tech dream of production that show off Graham Sutton's ability to think outside the box. But its the breakdown in the middle that really gets me going... Love that synth line with its stereo spread that really gives a feeling of space!

Having mentioned so much about this release, and almost nothing about the artist who produced and wrote it, I feel it's time I did... Boymerang is none other than the legendary front man of the 80s experimental band Bark Psychosis, a band well renowned for it's innovative outlook on music, even if it did have a somewhat sparse output. Little wonder then that Graham Sutton was never really about quantity so much as quality. This is reflected by Sutton's own minimal output in the Drum & Bass scene... The Boymerang EP on Leaf back in 1994, which heralded his starting point into the heady world of Drum & Bass, was minimal. In 1996 he release the Pro-Active EP, also on Leaf, with a track called Autumnal which has been dropped in quite a few intelligent Drum & Bass since its release. While his style was simple back then, it was nothing really to write home about (in my humble opinion). However, Sutton's continued listening, attending nights and innovative way of thinking really started to come through with this Prototype release... With him eventually up to speed on Drum & Bass, this Prototype release paved the way to his ground breaking album on Capitol called Balance Of The Force, which pretty much saw his departure from Drum & Bass too... Shame, as it was a real pleasure while it lasted!

All in all a mighty release from a true innovator and originator!!! Big up the man Graham Sutton!