Infinite Mary Anne Hobbs by BRITify.com - 18

Chloé & Vassilena Serafimova - Driveway

Out now on Crosstown Rebels: lnk.to/krustremixes

On 9th July Crosstown Rebels released ‘TTOE Remixes #3’ – the third in a trio of Eps featuring reworks from Krust’s lauded masterpiece ‘The Edge Of Everything’. The selection of top-drawer artists delighted to rub shoulders with the revered master added UNKLE, Hodge and DJ Nature to a list that has seen Masters At Work, Four Tet, Damian Lazarus, Batu, Calibre, LCY and Flynn all deliver inspired versions. Following ‘TTOE Remixes #3’ EP, the full set of reworks is now released via Crosstown Rebels as an album called ‘The Edge Of Everything - Remixed’.

Linking back to a shared history that saw Krust (alongside Roni Size) remix DJ Krush’s ‘Dig This Vibe’ and also provide their own track ‘Tribetoon’ for the seminal ‘Headz 2’ compilation, both on James Lavelle’s label Mo’Wax, now the influential DJ/producer/A&R delivers arguably his best ever work under the UNKLE alias, with deep breakbeat goodness that’s both classic and perfectly now.

A sonic son of Krust, fellow Bristolian Hodge works ‘Constructive Ambiguity’ into a proggy new school breaks monster that carves the original’s metallic bass into sharp new shapes, whilst sparkling like melodic stars is Four Tet’s take on ‘Negative Returns’, which packs a deceptively heavy punch, maintaining the original’s hurtling velocity, fuelled by a huge sub-bass engine.

In an exchange that reaches back to 1997, Krust sampled Masters At Work alias Nuyorican Soul’s ‘Nautilus (Mawtilus)’/‘Mind Fluid’ on his game-changing single ‘Soul In Motion’. This was reciprocated in 1998 by Nuyorican Soul’s remix of ‘Watching Windows’ by Reprazent, of which Krust was a key member. Here the duo individually known as Kenny ”Dope” Gonzalez and Little Louie Vega deliver pure audiophile euphony, somewhere between broken beat, real house, cosmic acid and future jazz funk.

A rugged halftime head-nodder (which again brings things full circle) is by Krust’s brother Flynn – a fellow member of 1989 ‘Wishing On A Star’ hitmakers Fresh 4 alongside Krust, and also a jungle legend in his own right, as half of veteran duo Flynn & Flora. More West Country royalty comes from Wild Bunch founder Milo Johnson AKA DJ Nature’s wigged-out Martian house by way of New York – which, in another of Krust’s many thematic circles – echoes the Latin-tinged, blunted science of Nu Yorican Soul’s ‘Mind Fluid’ and ‘The Nervous Track’.

Crosstown Rebels boss Damian Lazarus maintains Krust’s epic adventure narrative, retelling the tale in his own words, taking recognisable parts from the original and transposing them into a groovy cosmic house odyssey, whilst Calibre turns ‘It’s A Lot’ into a warm, glowing two-step roller with serrated analogue bass and masterful musicality befitting his classical training.

The spiralling beat-and-bass science of Batu’s version takes ‘Space Oddity’ and deconstructs it like a cubist portrait, matching Krust himself in pure outside-the-box original expression. Rising new school leader LCY is clearly a kindred spirit too, rivalling Krust with their future-facing breakbeat science that’s equally as compelling and inventive as the original.

With such inspiring source material, it’s unsurprising that all of the remixers have brought their best game to this impeccable collection.

Various Artists

Negative Returns

Krust - Negative Returns (Four Tet Remix)

DBH - Genuine Leaf Fairy Sighted in English Woodland
The Funz - Emain Ablach to Avalon
Mary Stark - King of the Faeries
Ian Humberstone - Swinging Lamps in Starlit Globes
Dean McPhee - Pudding Pie Hill
Tragic Magic - Rowan Ash and Red Thread
Stu Bannister - Holy Wells
Bridget Hayden - The Stone Woman
Mary & David - Lob of Spirits
Emily Oldfield - Diptera
Brian Campbell, Peter Smyth and Carl Turney - Requiem for the Lost
Magpahi - Transposed to Stone
David Chatton Barker - Starlight Quickbeam (Rowan)
Jennifer Reid - Boghart Hall Clough
David Jaycock - Sam Spriggan
Sam McLoughlin - Green and Brown
Sarah Lundy - Piseog [egg of ill omen]
Arianne Churchman - The Night-Mare
Steve Patterson and Mark Patterson - Faery Abstraction

Swifter than the Moon's Sphere - Sampler

Electronic Rhythm Number Twelve

British musician Jo Johnson’s debut solo album for Further Records, Weaving, betokens an exciting presence in the world of minimalist composition. 

“Ancestral Footsteps” opens the LP with cascades of cyclical harp-like sounds, an homage to one of Johnson’s primary inspirations: Alice Coltrane. Channelling rigorous new age and mesmerizing Riley-esque/Reichian minimalism, the piece accrues heft and intensity, with occasional bursts of synthetic, tribal clapping until it fades out with cinematic flourish. The title track gradually alters simple guitar and keyboard phrases, along with a chiming motif that multiplies in a hall of mirrors. The disorientating arpeggios form moiré patterns against colossal bass notes. The mood lightens considerably with “Words Came After Music,” whose sweeping strings and drones could take you to whatever your idea of heaven is. Interestingly, the title of the piece is inspired by an anthropological theory Johnson stumbled across that musical ability predates language in humans. With its sombre, undulating synths and lustrous highs and lows, “In the Shadow of The Workhouse” plumbs profound emotional depths. Epic closer “Silver Threads” starts as an almost silent retreat in the vein of Laurie Spiegel's Appalachian Grove or Eno and Budd's The Pearl with the faint hum and buzz of telegraph wires, until four minutes in a stoic pulse and suspenseful chiming motif arise, buttressed by glowing synth sighs and the LP's only percussive thumps (think Incunabula era Autechre). 

While inspired by the "serious music" of Arvo Pärt, Wim Mertens and others, Johnson’s mandalas of tone mantras offer a playful, DIY sense of adventure, as you might expect from the former guitarist for incendiary punk group Huggy Bear and a long-term co-organizer of London’s Bleep43 techno club night and label. Weaving condenses Johnson's long love affair with free jazz, minimalism and electronic music and this unique ambient composition is invested with powerful emotional resonance.

Weaving

red rhapsody

The Night Before Christmas - A Musical Fantasy

Dance, Chitlins, Dance

Sylvia Monnier - "Dennis Hopper"

"On this 6-track album, the musical world of Golden Ivy comes full circle as he introduces these seemingly different elements to each other. On one hand, there is the cold precision of programmed rhythms pulsing through the base layers: echoes of the urban industrial cityscape in which it functions. On the other hand, the sliding howls across the strings of the violin reaches much further out into the wilderness. And still - melded together - they manage to convey a feeling of “home”.

Taking inspiration from the fourth world concept of Jon Hassel, Ivar finds a delicate path where influences of folk music from various cultures can be captured and contained within a modern frame of mind. The violin and flute are present throughout the album like a red thread. Perhaps they are the perfect instruments to capture the melancholy, isolation and beauty of being alone with nature, and of being home in oneself.

But there’s also Ivars jovial sense of humour that peers through, for instance on the pirate fantasy of “Long John Silver” or the jittery bounce of “Game Vän”. Oddball touches of lefthanded debauchery pass by here and there, but the focus remains on simplicity and repetition. The compositions are focused and tightly harnessed to the rhythms which carry them. "

Words: Simon Eliasson

Album release date:
20 November 2018

A1 Golden Ivy - Söndagsmålare Vinyl

Kickstand Riddim

Like It Hot

“It’s not easy to be free, but it’s harder not to be”.These are the first words to Bad Woman, Céline Gillain’s debut LP on DRAMA.

I’ve never had that many difficulties writing a text for a release. There were easy ways of dealing with it actually, like isolating some of the lyrics and making aphorisms out of them that would have punctuated the text. I could have also wrote about her music with hackneyed words and glamorous comparisons with the likes of Laurie Anderson or Leslie Winer.

Maybe is it because it summons the influence of artists that have been crucial in our lives, maybe is it because of the ambition and the absolute sincerity emanating from this record, maybe is it also because of the utter contemporaneity of the record… but I feel stuck.

So I will only say a couple of things. If the idea of an LP following her debut 7″ on Lexi Disques gets you as excited as we were and still are, you won’t be disappointed by Bad Woman. The music on the upcoming album definitely is pop music, but in a disturbing, beyond « good » and « bad » taste kind of way.

It sometimes feel as if Bad Woman has been written by a former Pop diva that saw her expectations being shattered by life and now tries to make her come-back with a new album, influenced by what she believes to be contemporary pop music. The thing is, the result is a mutant blend of everything and anything that has been produced by the music industry these last 30 years, from Cher’s delirious come-back in the 1990’s to the most embarrassing moments in Dance music, and it rather sounds like a record that would have been written in a parallel universe.

That being said, Bad Woman tackles painful issues about our lives as individuals and society but with absolute elegance. After months of being the only one able to listen to it, no need to say that Zaltan & I are now extremely proud and happy to see this record coming to life. Thank you Céline for untrusting with taking care of your album.

OUT DECEMBER 2018 via DRAMA

Bandcamp

CÉLINE GILLAIN - IN THE ARENA (DRAMA2)

Drink a Rum

Endless Transmission

Transmission

Return / W.A.R

Return

Angel Tears in Sunlight

Marking Time

Whities 023 (The Act of Falling from the 8th Floor)

Zawaj زواج

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soundcloud:tracks:1060966807

Marking Time

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