 100.0% positive (80 ratings)
Buyer Rating: 100.0% positive (79 ratings)
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Reviews & Discussion:
A Persian philosopher named Jalal al-Din Muhammad Rumi once wrote, "Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field. I will meet you there."So, if you came to this track - as I did - for the Boards Of Canada remix... And find yourself disappointed with their effort - for whatever your reason - then perhaps you should ask yourself this... "Have I - in my 'infinite' wisdom - projected something onto an artist... An artist, who's freedom of expression has, at some point in time, yielded some of the most mind blowing electronica tracks that I've ever heard... And, having listened to most of their works, then recognised a discernible pattern to how they make their music... And, thus, now find myself in a position to 'perfectly' understand and state exactly what it is that they should be doing (and shouldn't be doing) with their music for 'me', 'myself' and 'I' to like them... Then perhaps... In projecting my own opinion about what these artists should and shouldn't be doing, maybe I have gone and put them into a small little box of my own making, expecting them to stay there like two good little well trained poodles ought... ?" Well... Perhaps then... Yes... Perhaps then... If you can honestly ask yourself that... Then you may really see 'something' that lies beyond the horizon of everyday subjective perspective... 'Something' that is beyond the notions of "right and wrong"... That leaves opinionated trains of thought to one side and accepts whatever 'is' without prejudice AND opinion as to what it should be... And, in doing your best to listen with this open mind, maybe then, rather than complaining when someone does something that you weren't expecting... OR does something that you simply don't like... Which seems to only leave you disappointed - or even hurt - because it doesn't match (at least only from your own single minded perspective) what you thought it was going to be like... You'll at last hear 'something' that lies beyond your own desire... And see 'something' that freely expresses what it is that someone else wanted to express when they decided to create it... ! As they say... "If I'm sinking in laughing at something sunken in, I am..." And that's "Why?" + "BOC" goes... 5/5! - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - If you grew up with white boys Who only look at black and puerto rican porno 'Cause they want something that their dad don't got Then you know where you're at Mortaring your earholes shut in a rush with wet coke In a starbucks bathroom with the door closed On booze, I'm left in residue and confused Like the first time you used soft water Down on my luck, caught unaware Like Houdini when the last fist struck Sinking in laughing at something sunken in, I am... If I'm sinking in laughing at something sunken in, I am... If I'm sinking in laughing at something sunken in, I am... Sucking dick for drink tickets At the free bar at my cousin's Bat Mitzvah Cutting the punch line and it ain't no joke Devoid of all hope circus mirrors and pot smoke Picking fights on dyke night With shirlies and lokes and snatching purses Doing out on karaoke and forgetting all the verses Blowing kisses to disinterested bitches Playing lead lay in a bad way on broadway Sending sexy SMSes to my exes new man cause I can On the road trying to break an old van Eating pussy for new fangs, I am what the hell Using Purell till my hands bleed and swell Missing mail at a motel 6, I'm unwell If I'm... Sinking in laughing at something sunken in, I am... If I'm sinking in laughing at something sunken in, I am... If I'm sinking in laughing at something sunken in, I am... It feels exciting touching your handwriting Getting horny by reading it and repeating poor me Intently staring at the picture of your feet on the sticker At the R. Crumb exhibit, I wonder who's sicker Jerking off in an art museum john till my dick hurts The kind of shit I won't admit to my head shrinker Not even in a whisper to my own little sister I just act like a dick and talk shit when I'm with her Aught six I'll say the Friday before easter Was not what I cried to myself in the pisser And with you in the front row at the silver Jews show And you act like you didn't notice, my fear of the bear At showbiz pizza when I saw six was overwhelming and not dissimilar to this If I'm... Sinking in laughting at something sunken in, I am... If I'm sinking in laughing at something sunken in, I am... If I'm sinking in laughing at something sunken in, I am... At Jacob Han's on tour I wake up Hung over on a hardwood floor From a dream about how your dress Hangs off of your little breasts I'd rather be dead than call this song How I lost your respect but god bless or get neglected And I'll see you when the sun sets East, don't forget me - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 
What an EP! AND I mean... WHAT AN EP!!! This 12" should be seen as one of the main tracks that began to redefine what Drum & Bass was back in the mid 90s... Especially with regards to rhythmic and tonal flow... ! After this track found its way into Fabio's hands, Tony John Bowes' (a.k.a. Justice) - as a minimalist producer of breakbeat form and function - fast became part of the select stronghold of fearless producers that were helping revitalise the genre from the idle stagnation that had began to set in, constricting Drum & Bass's evolutionary path.In my humble opinion... 'Aquisse' is the track to check here. The first time I heard this was down at SPEED (Fabio and Bukem's night that used to be held down at the Mars Bar on Sutton Row just off Soho Square in London), where it fast became a sort of talisman that stood more for experimental fusion and freeform experimentation, showing us all that Drum & Bass didn't necessarily have to have breakbeats in it... Rather, it just needed drums and bass... ! For me, this minimalist slice of rhythmic techno inspired phonetics, layered with lush synth-like sample stabs - ones which gelled the whole flow together like some future 2000AD driving tune - seemed to capture what it must have been like back in the late 80s in Detroit, USA, during the techno movement. No doubt, 'Aquisse' was probably the first track of its kind that forged the obvious bridge between these two genres i.e. techno and Drum & Bass. Soon after its first airing at SPEED, tracks like these became more and more commonplace every Thursday night at the Mars Bar... Always beautifully complimenting and dispersing the over abundance of purely breakbeat rhythmication... In fact, it was probably this one track alone that inspired many other long-standing underground producers to leave the realms of breakbeat slicing and dicing, and to instead work with percussive beats and techno-like contours... Which, when done correctly, left many an unsuspecting listener dumbfounded as to what exactly it was they were listening to. From this point onwards, you just couldn't help but notice how 'new-skool' producers were beginning to work with nothing other than beats from Roland TR-909s, TR-808s and TR-606s... As well as varied sonic textures and samples (see Neo-Tech's "Valves" on Moving Shadow). One classic example of this shift from breaks to beats - which popped up on acetate only a few months after this 12" of a nugget had been released on Basement Phil's label - was Sean O'Keeffe's (a.k.a. Deep Blue) track called "Thursday" (released on Moving Shadow), which instantly became the official SPEED anthem... !!! From my perspective, 'Aquisse' can be seen as a sort of obvious reformation of what Drum & Bass could - and should - be... Either way, after its release, you just couldn't help but notice the seriously WHACKED creations that popped up from the likes of new bread producers (Optical, Matrix, Deep Blue, Dom & Optical, Ed Rush, etc.)... Producers who began to fuse all sorts of rhythmic abstractions into varied extrapolations... All of which - it should be noted - were snapped up by, and released on, various long standing Drum & Bass labels. On the flip side of this 12", which - I should add - was almost equally as caned down at SPEED, is 'Feverish.' Unlike it's flip, this track still uses minimally sliced breakbeats... However, they are so thinly diced that you'd be hard pressed to recognise that they did come from breakbeats. Layered with some more ambrosial tonal modulations, harking of future freeform funk, this number jitters into a shaky - but rolling - groove... Shimmering avidly, it builds up into a neat recapitulation by layering some simple note sequences/arrangements over each other into a complex 'harmonious-dissonance' (I know, go figure) of texture. Certainly, for the time, programming like this in Drum & Bass had been rarely heard outside of SPEED. Easily interesting enough to clasp one's attention - especially when played loud - for the whole duration of the track, this number still drops with great effect whenever I've played it out in last few years. So... If you're joining the dots on Drum & Bass' evolutionary journey... And want to pick up a piece of underground musical history in the making... Then don't miss this diamond of a release. Why? Because this track symbolises one of the main turning points in the history of this genre's development. No doubt, Justice carefully crafted these two tracks to re-correct the tedium that was fast destroying the scene's appeal in 1996... And here, even today, you can still clearly hear how radically he departed from the standard ideal of what Drum & Bass had become... So vibrantly... And so minimally... Easily a 5/5! 
I remember when this album first came out back in 1997... I was at university in London, nursing a chronic Drum & Bass fascination into a full time DJ/music/audio engineering career. Practically everyday, in between the numerous lectures on biochemical metabolic and immune pathways (that operate/function within the human body), I would do my best to avoid the end of day student union drink-ups and, instead, jump on a tube in order to venture out in to the dark, neon lit circuit-like roadways of the asphalt London sprawl, wondering down any street that looked ripe with promise, searching for all and any independent/underground record stores I could find... When I was lucky enough to track a new one down, I would note their number in my record store book and ring them up nearly everyday asking them for records that were on my list - a list that I religiously compiled after listening to KISS 100 FM's Fabio & Grooverider's Wednesday shows and reading various DJ top 10s in assorted magazines - so that I could tick them off, one by one, until I had some of the most sort after Drum & Bass tunes of the time to play out at the weekends.This was around the same time that SPEED (Fabio and Bukem's night that used to be held down at the Mars Bar on Sutton Row, just off Soho Square, in London) closed down... And TEMPO had just been rumoured to replace it at the cozy underground venue of the Velvet Rooms (on Charing Cross Road, right next to Tottenham Court Road, in London). Roni Size was doing some BIG things back then in Drum & Bass, mainly on V Recordings and his Full Cycle and Dope Dragon labels... Not to mention that he had also just released an album on Giles Peterson's 'Talkin' Loud' imprint, entitled "New Forms" under the guise of 'Reprezent'. Being really interested in electronic music back then - to the point I'd be religiously reading more NME, Melody Maker, WIRE, Muzik, DJ, Atmosphere, etc... than science papers, even during my exams - once I had heard that Size had been nominated for the Mercury Music prize, I became somewhat obsessed with reading everything I could about the mighty event ahead. While everyone in the Drum & Bass scene was talking about how they had at last got the recognition they deserved, many outside of it i.e. NME, Melody Maker, were saying how unlikely it was that Roni Size would win... Mainly because Radiohead - someone I had vaguely heard about at school - had released an album that was, at last, truly mind-blowningly worthy of the accolade, and thus would be the only obvious choice for the Prize panel. Still, all us Drum & Bass heads were at least very happy with what this meant for the Drum & Bass labels and artists we had supported for so long i.e. LTJ Bukem, Size, Krust, Die, JJ Frost, Fabio, Grooverider, Goldie, GCG, Pulse, Wax Doctor, Alex Reece, Adam F, Digital, Photek, etc... At last Drum & Bass had been recognised by the mainstream music fraternity! And, however you looked at this nomination for the BIG TIME i.e. whether Roni would size up to the mark and win... OR even not! Drum & Bass had just got one hell of a lot of seriously good publicity. So when the night of the Mercury Music Prize arrived... I watched without holding my breath for Roni Size and his crew to win... Having been reading ALL of the press about just how brilliant 'this' album was from 'some' indie rock band - called Radiohead - one that I'd only vaguely heard of before, for me it was a forgone conclusion who had won... Why? Because the press usually hit the nail on the head. No doubt I didn't really ever understand why Radiohead should have won this prize until much, much later on in life... Rather I just accepted that moto... "5 billion people can't be wrong!" So when 'Reprezent' won that evening... I think we all lost it and went a bit mental... In fact we all went off later that week and celebrated down at Blue Note and any other venue that was doing some Drum & Bass night i.e. Bar Rumba, Tempo, etc... We'd never seen so many people down at these venues before... It honestly began to seem that, over-night, everyone had got into Drum & Bass... And slowly - all so very slowly - it began to go down the pan. In the aftermath of - what I can only personally refer to as - Drum & Bass's resounding downfall... I found that I had to gorge myself on other strange vibes to get my underground fix... Most of these were WARP anomalies, which filled, in the only way I knew how, the vacuum that had been left by the commercialisation of a once fearless and experimental underground artistic movement. Still seeking phrenetic rhythmic chops and novel dance arrangements, ones that fell in line with the likes of Photek/Hidden Agenda/Motiv One/Reinforced i.e. serious breakbeat experimentation, I rediscovered old allies like Aphex Twin, Squarepusher and Autechre... The evolution from Drum & Bass to this new-bread glitch/breakbeat/techno free-form experimentalism was a logical - and natural - progression for me. But, still, I couldn't get over what had happened. I missed those nights out on the town that I had become so used to... Like immensely missed them... That rabble of clubs that had always sported the freshest, choicest cuts of acetate, which had only - just days before - come out of home studios and collided with the dance floor in explosive/original fashion... Cuts that sliced into your imagination; made you jack your body all night long; that left your soul reeling for more; feeling so alive... Clubs that were only sometimes listed in Time Out's eclectic underground selection. Then, after much debilitation over the point... As well as being inundated with listening to more crap releases than a toilet could adequately flush away... I asked the fateful question... "Why hadn't this rock and roll band i.e Radiohead, won the Mercury Music Prize? Perhaps if they had, the damage that Drum & Bass had taken from over-commercialisation wouldn't have happened, and it would still be evolving in imaginative, breath-taking, strictly underground ways... Hell, who were Radiohead anyway?" Finally... Five years later, after the 1997 Mercury Music Prize had sealed breakbeat music in a frame of "mainstream mania," I sat down at a friend's house, late one evening, and, having had a bit too much to drink down at "The George" (just off Belsize Park in London), I raved at him wildly how Drum & Bass had totally lost it. And I meant totally... I told how bored I'd become when sifting through track after similar track - all of which just followed some sort of basic pattern - to find one new tune that totally blew me away. All night long I recounted release after cheesy bloody release... And sung a song of tragedy and woe to him... A tune of lost heart and soul... And I asked why - oh, bloody why - didn't that 'Radiohead' band win back in 1997. To which my friend curiously asked whether I'd actually ever heard the Radiohead album that had got them nominated for the Mercury Music Prize back then... ? "No, I hadn't." I replied. And, shocked as he was (but probably more out of boredom from my rant, wanting to shut me up for an hour or so), he put it on. AND I've got to say... I was amazed. There are some special moments in one's life... Ones that leave indelible marks on your impression and perspective on life... Ones that change, ever-so-slightly, your own perceptive outlook on how it all fits together. Like, your first kiss... The first time you fall in love... The first time you heard Bill Hicks... A true moment of sharing your time with someone who really needs it... Doing so without any need for reward or acknowledgement... When you leave home and stand on your own two feet... When you get your degree... Or win your first race... The first time you do acid... When you really help someone from your the bottom of your heart, and NOT do so just because you think it's the right thing to do... When you realise your humanity... OR when you loose everything, thinking it's the end... But get it all - and more - back again... When you finally loose your notion of 'self' and awake - even if only for a moment - to find the world free of any attachment and without any worry at all... THESE very moments stay with you for life, locked in the matrix of your memories as they subtly influence how you are in this present moment, allowing the idea of your 'self' to relate to the world around you in socially accepted ways of being. Because... It's from these special moments that we all find freedom within the limits in which we are bound to act... And, once we experience enough of them, we know how to grow beautifully within the confines provided to us, understanding together, from love, without hatred or anger, to show others, truly... So truly... How to understand life in more meaningful and open ways... Embracing every moment as if it was our first and last. For me... This album captured... And still captures... All of that ideal... Doing so in a truly timeless (and slightly Bill Hicks) kind of a way... Giving one singularity - with immense gravitational force - an awe inspiring album for everyone to mull over time and again... Without it ever getting boring... Yes... It hit me that hard. In fact... I was SO blown away by "OK COMPUTER" when I originally heard it, that I felt that Roni Size winning the Mercury Music Prize was probably the biggest mistake (and joke) in musical history. I mean... From the outset... "Airbag" harks the reincarnated patterns of a 'self' = less understanding... So I loose sight of my conceptualised notion of 'self', and wonder if all life is really just patterns of energetic motion... Motion that is comprised of chemicals that are made up of atoms, born from the hearts of stars... And surely then consciousness would purely be a by product of the complex, interdependent layers of chaos inherent in the system of chemical reactions between the different concentrated components of star dust in our bodies... I do not possess a soul. Rather I am a soul, forged in the hearts of Suns, burning brightly in all I do, experiencing only the vibration of the here and now, witnessing the birth of future possible generations in the vast furnaces of the heavens above... And I am amazed that all the interdependent events that gave rise this incarnation of my apparent 'self' actually survived this long to give rise to the idea of a 'me,' sitting here, writing this. Then, with "Paranoid Android" touching on ambition's sinister side... I find a mirror to my own disdain for what happened in the Drum & Bass scene... The novelty and wonder of jumping on someone else's train, for all the wrong reasons... To make a quick buck... To gain so bit of fame... Without truly originating anything whatsoever... So the memes of Susan Blackmore's "The Meme Machine" are at work within the brands and genres that attract people to the smell of ludicrous irony, material success and fast spun fame... Seeking fleeting moments of base pleasure and success over true, diligent spiritual ecstasy (or Nirvana)... Thus many sell out and forget to listen to their hearts anymore... All this leads beautifully into "Subterranean Homesick Alien"... Where Noam Chomsky' reference to how aliens would view us in his book, entitled "Media Control", comes out beautifully clear... As I remember the clear rushes from having been tripping all night long, to find this experience of 'self' greeted with the first rays of the morning summer's sun... And I realise how uptight we all can be... How close to new experiences we are... How we dislike what we don't like, pushing it away all the time... And bringing in whatever we fancy... And how weird the overall 'human' condition really is... How detached from 'natural ways' we've become... How confusing it becomes... Those unpaid bills... Those hidden desires... Those open formalities of closed acceptability. But still, in all this confusion... Living within all these rules of societal hibernation... Of detached homely concerns... Ones which are passed down from father/mother to son/daughter, generation after generation... We are beckoned to wake from our subservient slumber in "Exit Music"... And see the chill, stark emptiness of reality... A reality that shows us nothing more than the fact that our social constructs simply - at best - the imagined meanderings of 'pattern seeking beings' which placed loosely over all phenomena to allow us a comfortable and egocentric view of the universe in which we find ourselves... That we could break free from all this delusion and grasp an unbounded, undefined and infinite world, if only we cared to truly try... Then we could grasp the Nirvana found by wiser masters than those we have today i.e. like the Buddha, rather than choke ourselves on our systems of constricted thought and understanding... Which only lead us into stronger attachment and further distractions from the only thing that matters... REALISATION OF THE TRUE NATURE OF MIND. Within this age of choice... Procuring freedom of travel for all but the really impoverished i.e. you can travel to almost anywhere in the world within a single day... We have become passive wonderers, guided by our desires spawned from advertising, in a world where the offer of "better horizons lie ahead" continually leads us into wishing for a better future... A better circumstance... A better home... A better life. Thus we are lead away from true contentment within this present, timeless moment and proximity of bodily design. Here, in "Let Down", Radiohead poetically captures the nostalgic twists and turns that many of us find ourselves doing in daily routines i.e. going on holiday abroad to relax, waiting for the delayed train/plane to arrive, feeling that we should be treated better than this, that we deserve more than this... That 'this' shouldn't be happening to us... That we need something better... !? And so we loose ourselves in travel... Without a home or any context to our environment... We drivel about sentimentality and loss... If only we could see through this... And find the true nature of our reality... That we have won the lottery of existence... Perhaps we wouldn't ever need to feel let down again. From there, we are next presented with "Karma Police..." Which leads on from "Let Down" somewhat pertinently into the Samsaric view of cyclical existence... We continually give everything we have... Aiming for true happiness, contentment, joy and other positive qualities that we seek in life... Yet, every time we do so, we only seem to find fleeting moments of these, which always eventually give way to their antonyms. Here, York's warbling voice on about how we all reap what we sow comes into a parallel with the notion of Buddhist Karma... Whether unwittingly doing so by following some fashion, or taking responsibility for our actions and learning an educated trade... We all are responsible for our choices in this life... And if we don't want something to happen... We have the choice to prevent it... To prevent it all. And to create all that is good for everyone... For every sentient being. ! But for those who cannot accept the role they play in their own fortunes, the Karma Police gentle repeat... "This is what you get... When you mess with us." In this interdependent world of cause and effect, we have a chance - one golden chance - to truly loose our notion of "self..." And be free. Even if only for a moment. And when we do... We find an openness... A spaciousness... Without being limited by definitions... A spaciousness that's free from clouds that prevent one fro realising the true nature of one's mind... Clearing our state of awareness and perspective to realise that... We simply are. And, thus, presently exist in Samsara's folds. So many of us find ourselves following lifestyles that look after the supposed needs of the modern man... After all... Who are we to step out of line? These lifestyles that allow us to feel fitter and happier... So we can work better with our colleges... Play better together and lead more satisfying lives... Doing things more efficiently and faster than previously, working better together in corporations and companies that benefit everyone involved in working for them. Here "Fitter Happier" seems to cleverly tap into the barrage of media savvy catch phrasing and branding that was/is still going around... In a computer like voice, all the slogans we know so well are thrown into one melting pot and allowed a chance to mingle into an absurd herd like mentality of wellbeing and betterment. Everything is safer and healthier than it used to be... We more clever and widely read than we have been before... We sleep better... We all live longer. No chance for depression, sadness or feeling ugly... There is no place for negative feelings here... We should be at ease... In fact... We are at ease. Why should we worry? Eventually we are captured by this lifestyle... "No chance of escape." We know "everything"... We are given everything in this media rich world... Why should we want more? Yet, in tragedy, we are "Concerned (But Powerless)". We collect good memories... We eventually find perfect mental pictures of ourselves - ones that seem to define us as individuals, separate and independent from everyone else... And so we find meaning and joy in our lives. But in reality, these pictures are sometimes so far removed from actual fact, that if we were to peer back into them more precisely and openly... If we were to view them while tripping on LSD... We might see that many of us have in actual fact become nothing more than hairless ape like pigs... Sitting in our cage like homes... Quaffing an abundance of food and drink... Pleasure bent and hedonistic in desire... Left to live longer with the grace of antibiotics. !!! No doubt a bleak outlook... But can we deny that a coin has two sides? The sense of independence and control that many of us feel we have in our lives is no doubt established in many ways... And one of those ways is via voting rights. However, we are rarely aware of the "Electioneering" that goes on behind the scenes of any major election... Elections that apparently give us free choice... As if prompted by Adam Curtis' BBC documentary, entitled "Century Of Self" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Century_of_the_Self), Radiohead offer a short and briefly mocking monologue that wouldn't be too far removed from what most political figures announce before elections now-a-days... In between all the facts and figures that are continually pumped out across the airwaves of radio and televised media... Facts and figures that show us all from behind the complex issues of stearing a country towards success, politicians can sometime make their lives seemingly more important and significant than they actually are. "When I go forwards you go backwards and somehwere we will meet" offers a thought for everyone to consider... By listening to and voting for these political figure heads - who simply use psychological catch phrases to win our vote with, offering the promise of what they could do rather than what they will do - do we not also dumb ourselves down and create this loop of disrespect? Missing a song... We hit another gem "No Surprises". All I'll do here is list the lyrics as they speak for themselves... - - - - - - - - - - - - - - A heart that's full up like a landfill A job that slowly kills you Bruises that won't heal You look so tired and unhappy Bring down the government They don't, they don't speak for us I'll take a quiet life A handshake of carbon monoxide No alarms and no surprises No alarms and no surprises No alarms and no surprises Silent, silent This is my final fit, my final bellyache with No alarms and no surprises No alarms and no surprises No alarms and no surprises please Such a pretty house, such a pretty garden No alarms and no surprises (let me out of here) No alarms and no surprises (let me out of here) No alarms and no surprises please (let me out of here) - - - - - - - - - - - - - - I could go on... But I won't. After having heard it... Both lyrically and musically... And then comparing it to Reprezent's "New Forms"... Back to back... I couldn't understand why the Mercury Music Prize in 1997 had been handed over to Size's outfit. No way could I ever justify how the neat, but simple, melodic strips and lively rhythms of Reprezent's "New Forms" actually made bigger waves than the sheer all encompassing magnitude of mindful, omnipotent pros that Radiohead had fractured together through their alternative view on 21st century life in "OK COMPUTER"!?!? Perhaps no one had really heard the album... Like hadn't done back in 1997... ? OR perhaps the Mercury Music Prize judges had likened it to some Pink Floyd musical score, set to the drivellings of some mad-man's lyrics (again, sorry Tom)... ? THEN AGAIN perhaps they had just thought that the content of the album was slightly too depressing and heavy for their own lighter hearted, mass consumerist, wallet sized brains to absolve in to the overall universal perspective of their pleasurable, hedonistic lives... A perspective that the weak soul of 21st century life could never possible face in its present condition... ? OR maybe even the musical brilliance of this bright, day-light album, had set behind the horizon of corporate shallowness, and was now shinning on some other - more fortunate - part of the world, and so was lost against the neon flashes of the superficial night-time 'cheesy-quaver' fraternity? OR maybe, perchance, the judges just hadn't done enough acid... Whatever the reason... Whether their heads had been in a "Brown Paper Bag", like mine had... Or whether they wanted a change from all the depressing grungy rock-and-roll going around at the time... They seemed to have totally missed how this album profoundly challenged (and could possible change) the way we saw - and should see - ourselves in the context of present day society... And, thus, they had left it high and dry. Speaking of which... I seem to remember that at this time quite a few of my friends were taking Prozac back then... The new wonder drug that helped everyone do what it was they apparently should be doing without getting too lost in the details... And possibly the judges were all high on it too...And because of their intake of this antidepressant, they preferred those lighter, happier upbeat rhythms on "New Forms" to jig to rather than the heady and somewhat realistically stark blues of "OK COMPUTER"... Okay... I'll stop there... And just say that... I have now taken solace in a clearer perspective... One that came better into focus after I listened to this album... And so, I find myself no longer upset over the downfall of Drum & Bass. Rather, it's demise (well, I call it 'demise' only from my humble perspective, as isn't everything only from someone's perspective) has filled me with promise... Allowing change to carry on with evolution's open corridors of wonder... As each new turn now only opens up new doorways of vision and possibility, which eventually lead me down other musical avenues to discover many, many more new and wondrous an album... Albums just like this... Only maybe not quite as good. For me... OK COMPUTER is easily 5/5! 
For me it's the Marcus Intalex & S.T. Files Remix that stands out from the rest here... Much like a platinum nugget could go unnoticed among some silver trinkets of the time, this release is not to be overlooked... ! Especially if you're into Drum & Bass. Caned down at SWERVE in 1999 and 2000 (Fabio's night, once held at the Velvet Rooms, and now down at The End) by the likes of Fabio and DJ Flight, to name but a few, this is a stylish bit of sophisticated Drum & Bass production... One that would still easily commix into any DJ set today.Starting out with a simple tempo locked hi-hat layered over some lush 'Intalex' style pads, a warming bass note and some syncopated electronic pulses meld into the sparse simplicity of this tight intro. After 24 or so bars, the track weaves in a light arpeggio that sets the melodic key, during which Elizabeth Troy's vocals effervesce lightly over the soundscape with convincing effect... "Just look what he's done for me... My eyes are on you... So special..." until she eventually declares, "Let's take a ride... !" Here the track drops into some taut esthetic 'Marcus Intalex & S.T. Files' rhythms... Electro, fluxed-out sounds ride over the top of some frenetic 'Soul:R' style breaks, adding an extra dimension to the whole groove... One that is rarely heard now-a-days in most tunes, I should add. With two synths coming in every 8 bars, I just love the second amplitude modulated one as it swerves tightly into and out of the rhythms being laid down... Towards the end of this rollout, Troy's vocals continue... "Feel it... Don't do it... Be sincere. I'm crazy!" After these exclamations the track breaks and makes way for the next phase... Paired with a classic, deep, warming bass line - one that glows throughout the soul of this track - the previous beats are interspersed with Troy's sampled groans of pleasure... Groans that could almost take one to that razor's edge of minimalist delight... From there on in, some elegant minimalist build ups and break downs flow out, recapitulating the original form with minor deviations. Despite the minimalist essence found here... In my humble opinion, this is another vintage example of some great breakbeat experimentation... Not to mention it also shows how, left to a good producer, Drum & Bass remixes can work amazingly well for most singles. All mixed together with some high class, crystal clear precision... This is the reason I used to go down to nights like SPEED, TEMPO and SERVE back in the mid 90s to early naughties... And, very thankfully, I'm still glad to say this laboratory style production can be found bubbling to the surface from time to time even today. Simple, progressive, yet tonally complex and clear, this number roles out with such finesse that it sincerely demonstrates why I continually find myself referring to Marcus Intalex & S.T. Files as two of my biggest heroes still around on the Drum & Bass circuit today. Easily a 5/5! 
What SWERVE number!!! Hearing this track casts my mind back to those Velvet Room Wednesday nights (on Charing Cross Road, right next to Tottenham Court Road, in London) between 1999 & 2000... Dancin' all night long to tracks like this, being spun by the likes of Bailey, DJ Flight, DJ Lee, et al.... Not to mention the mighty Fabio and Grooverider, who were commonly seen playing back to back sets here! But I digress...While this is only a single sided release... The production on it screams class! Metalheadz protegee J Majik's original mix of 'Love Is Not A Game' is a breathless excursion in minimal Drum & Bass, one that shows off his skills as a producer, beautifully working the husky soulful vocals of Kathy Brown into a hot, frenetic blend of orchestrated 21st century dance floor Chicago Soul. Certainly, for all those Drum & Bass heads out there, J Majik needs little introduction... However, it should be noted that Brown, too, has gained quite a musical reputation of her own... Especially for any soul fans! Starting her career as an American R&B Dance/House singer from South Carolina, she originally began singing in her local Gospel choir... Eventually she joined the contemporary R&B group 'Sweet Cinnamon' where she linked up with New York-based producer David Shaw through a mutual friend. This collaboration led to her first single, "Can't Play Around," released in 1993 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FUCTz4csreI). After this introduction, Brown scored her first number one success as the lead singer of Praxis, a musical project assembled by David Shaw and Cevin Fisher. Praxis' "Turn Me Out," which was first released in 1994, has been remixed and re-released numerous times now, achieving great acclaim in the clubs back in 1997, when Strictly Rhythm Records re-released it as "Turn Me Out (Turn To Sugar)" where it hit number one (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nulyok6SpzM). After this success, Brown collaborated with David Morales on "Joy" in 1999 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9HPLjQzRnpU). After which, having become somewhat disenchanted with the US music scene (so I'm told), she was open to ideas when Metalhead J Majik approached her and rustled up this nugget of fusion soul here. For me... This release manages to forge a classic bit of fusion between two highly dynamic and respected genres of music... not to mention it always gets the older generations asking "Is this Drum & Bass then? Wow! I actually like it!" 5/5 
Another SPEED (Fabio and Bukem's night that used to be held down at the Mars Bar on Sutton Row just off Soho Square in London) classic... The Peshay Remix here used to drop so heavy with that bass that you could hear those JBLs erupt into flatulence!
Wow... Another SPEED (Fabio and Bukem's night that used to be held down at the Mars Bar on Sutton Row just off Soho Square in London) track here... Lush Life is the one to check (in fact, I simply can't remember a single thing about the other side at all)... As the title stipulates, it's a lush, minimal arrangement of swirling chords and - later on in the track - some quirky, effected synth-violin melodic runs... All in all, those beats were quite something to dance to in the mid 1990s. No doubt J. Majik was certainly taking part in the innovation that was beginning to fracture the underground Drum & Bass perspective... And his efforts were paying off... As this was played a lot of the time by Bukem down at the MARS bar. In many ways it's a simple Jazz infused stepper with some future-like synth-scapes that remind me of some Bladerunner vibes. Not exactly a killer track in itself, but still, one worthy of note, bearing in mind the era in which it found itself released in i.e. there was mainly a lot of formulaic Jungle being produced at that time. Usually it was mixed back to back with track's like Wax Doctor's "Kid Capprice" or Doc Scott's "Far Away"... And was one of the tunes that became part SPEED's ever expanding repertoire of novel innovation and experimental breakbeat medication. For me, back then, this release was tantamount to my future keen interest in Infared Records... Go Jamie! And work your majik well. 
For me, "Fusion" is the track that I remember the most being played in 1995 ( http://youtu.be/AkVf58dpsqg )... Again, another classic from those SPEED days... This tune KILLED the dance floor the first time we all heard it down there! The raw power of the groove, not to mention the detail of the sounds used here, showed up the innovation that was beginning to separate itself from the mainstream, clichéd breakbeat jungle anthems that were 'clanging' out at the time... Bearing in mind the style of most of the music being produced in Drum & Bass then, this number shocked a lot of us, making us realise that there was something special going on down at the Mars Bar on those Thursday nights. Oozing freshness, harking of future visions of freeform experimentation, I can honestly say I was gob-smacked when I heard this! Those complex layered rhythms showed just how deep this artist ploughed into his creations... And, once you heard tracks like these, you just couldn't go back to listening to any 'wanna be' copy-cat artists...I seem to remember this stayed on acetate for quite sometime while Fabio 'cained' the monoply on it's playout. And rightly so... For the beat arrangment was (and no doubt still is) a testiment to legendary skills of Rupert Parks a.k.a. Photek, Aquarius, Studio Pressure, etc... ( http://www.discogs.com/artist/Studio+Pressure ), as a producer. On the flip is "The Water Margin"... Another innovative track that was rinsed-out down at SPEED too. With metalic hits layered over the top of those Jonny L style beats, it also became another milestone in the cutting edge mutations of Drum & Bass freeform/arrangement... Eventually giving way to some mayhem amen 'mash-up' break layering, this is one of those tracks that always seemed to work the crowd into frenzied dance hall troop! Either way, if you're looking for the tracks that made SPEED what it was... Tracks that were spun out down at that legendary night... Look no further... You've struck gold here. Relevant in every way imaginable, this 12" was way beyond where it was at... And still is at... !!! 5/5 
Another classic track from those SPEED days back in 1995 (Fabio and Bukem's night that used to be held down at the Mars Bar on Sutton Row just off Soho Square in London)... It was the Original Mix (http://youtu.be/u0j738ia9lg) that Fabio used to drop down there. In fact I remember hearing it being played several times in a month once, and then several times later on Fabio's Kiss 100 FM show on Wednesday night.All in all, I still really dig this track... Tough slamming Step-Off beats, Alex Reece's production style really works with that slightly quirky bass line that pumps through the groove. Then the slick, panting vocals of Deborah Anderson kick in... "Listen to me... I feel the sunshine..." repeated over and over again... In my humble opinion they work really well over the top of this driving purcushion... To add to this minimalist arrangment, there is some layering of sparse flute-ish stabs, along with a harmon-muted effect drizzled over the top. In fact, this beat is a very similar beat to the one used on Jazz Juice's "Detroit", which was released on Precious Materials the same year (http://www.discogs.com/Jazz-Juice-Detroit-Back-To-Back/release/70408). I think at this time in 1995, we could all feel the sunshine down at SPEED... It was holiday from all the Jungle that you couldn't help but hear day in and day out... There we found ourselves grooving to simple Jazz licks like this between 10.00pm and 2.00am every Thursday. |
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Monolith (a.k.a. David Paul Barnard) - who lives in the Wiltshire countryside somewhere - is one of the newest jewels in the Rephlex illustrious crown... One who'll be making some serious waves with releases to come... Yes... Mark my words... ! You've only got to listen to his new "Welcome" release (coming out on Rephlex soon) to hear the creative quality oozing out of this country bumpkin's pulsing, TB-303 addled mind. But we're not reviewing "Welcome" here... We're looking at Volume 1.
Offered up on a well pressed 12"... Or as a set of four 320 MP3 files from the Rephlex website... These 'slightly' POPtastic compositions remind me of The Tuss's own style of razor-edged, breakbeat electro techno infused with a bit of Lone's Lemurian pastel electronica down tempo beats and some of Daft Punk's tonal sensibilities... As such, all the tracks have many a heart-felt groomed groove rippling throughout their momentous moments... Easily laced with more than enough SYNTH-etic sounds for all those ACID freaks and TECHNO-crats among you, AND littered with their fair share of motifs and frills that'll cause the groove to stop, start and spill colourfully over into your imagination (much like some The Tuss' compositions might), you could - in fact - be totally forgiven for thinking that (perhaps) these tracks were actually created by Tusky him (or her) self... !? Such is the pure quality of each one of these compositions: every track has way more than enough melodic and rhythmic goings on in for each of them to keep even the most extreme ADS heads focused single pointedly throughout their entire playback. Despite this amazing similarity... When you listen really closely to the 909, 808, 606 patterns programmed by Monolith here, you won't find any of the cutting edge streamlined elegance of The Tuss' own majestic creations. But this is not to say that it's any less worthy of a huge round of applause... ! *
While I've become positively certain that Monolith is not another guise for Rephlex's erect and elusive master craftsman, these formulations still manage to take ACID onwards and upwards to that next level. In fact, I'd go as far as to say that if Mozart and/or Beethoven were around today, tinkling away with computers and multifarious modes of music making, they'd probably be making tracks like this... Or maybe not even as good as this!? Either way, you can see why Mr Monolith is supposedly THE most downloaded artists on the Rephlex website... !
It obvious these nuggets were carefully crafted with untold amounts of TLC and, thus, they should be served up with a pair of good hi-fidelity speakers and a healthy set keen, clean ears that has (between them) a mind ready to do some serious brain dancing... But be careful... 'Cause when listening to beats like these, you have to make sure your mind doesn't get so twisted that it accidentally becomes sprained!
These are without a doubt mental grooves and, as such, you should be aware that they can blow your mind.
So easily a 5/5!
* I mean who really gives a shit... Good music is good music, regardless of who it was created by.