Aquasky – Tranquility / Kauna

‘Kauna’ is a lovely little number Fabio used to hammer on his kiss fm show back in the day. Super chilled warmth with a walking baseline that gets under your skin.

Big Bud remix is absolutely stunning.... epic piece of 90's dnb.

Brent Newitt (Aquasky)

Chalke is a really old friend of mine from back in the Mid 90's when I first started Aquasky with Dave and Kieron. He lived in Southbourne, Bournemouth and had his studio near the beach and I use to find myself back at his many times after a rave. By this point Chalke had a couple of releases on Absolute 2 under the moniker 'Life On Mars' and had just started a new group 'Forces Of Nature' with his mate Tony Reeves and was signed to One Little Indian. We asked them to remix our 'Tranquillity' single on Moving Shadow in 1995, with our other mate Big Bud (who had his first releases on Underdog Recordings) also remixing it. We wanted to keep things on a South Coast tip for that release and showcase our friends on the seminal Moving Shadow imprint

Aquasky leave out the ravey elements, the hysteric vocal samples and jazzy/housey stabs to great effect here. If only more of their tracks exhibited this restraint.

A really beautiful record and one that's stuck with me a lot recently. Big Bud's remix is a lot closer to the original mix of the track and instead enhances it by fleshing it out with some pads and synths that sound almost mournful. The remix by Forces Of Nature on the flip is my favourite of the two however - the way the tune develops is just incredible, from the very minimal beginning with just hats and the baseline and a bit of pad, before welcoming in the breakbeats and some wonderful detuned flutes (which sound very Boards Of Canada, even though this release predates any of their notable output). What really makes this track stand out for me though, is the way it opens up with some gorgeous, panoramic pads which add so much space to the track.. like the review below says, these aren't particularly dancefloor burners but used well, they'll really impart a sense of wonder and futurism to a set. For a twenty old record this has not dated one bit!

A solid, laid back release for more quiet moments. Good tracks for building up a set again towards more powerful releases. This record is well done, but it's not a dancefloor burner. Nevertheless such records are also necessary for building diverse sets.