Reconnected

Back online after an unfortunate router explosion last Friday. It was cracking on a bit but I never expected it to leave in such a dramatic fashion, still over the years it provided me with no end of material to work with, and I only see fit to pay it tribute with somethings I've been playing in the meantime.

Chicote CFC - Knives In Honor To Love (2012)

There's going to be a running theme of Drum & Bass today, from an unlikely source actually, I loaded up on soundtracks to see me through the period of having no 'net. And as it turns out, Trigun's is still real good. Tsueno Imahori weaves a fine tapestry of all sorts of genres throughout: bits of Blues, Jazz, small touches of hip hop and all sorts crop up throughout. The highlight of the first OST album is by far and away Philosophy In A Tea Cup, the combination of Piano & breakbeat scratches my itch something fierce (although it's usually Omni Trio doing the scratching), it could have easily been something that appeared on an early Ninja Tune comp, it has that kind of DJ Food feel methinks. Which wouldn't be too far fetched considering Imahori's work on the Cowboy Bebop OST, which in addition to having a legit remix of the theme by DJ Food, also had a spin off remix album with the likes of Luke Vibert and Mr. Scruff.



Been revisiting the mid 90's drum & bass on offer from Everything But The Girl. Ironically enough this tune doesn't show off any of the melancholic lyrics that I remember the album for, but it's apretty good demo of the overall sound. I do have a li'l bit of a soft spot for tunes like this, I remember thinking they sounded crazy futuristic as a young 'un which is kinda funny looking back, because now I'd describe the whole of the Walking Wounded LP to be pretty par the course for D&B of the era. Not to knock it though, I still really like it and I think that Tracey Thorn's vocal accompaniment works great with the production.



Swinging back around to my earlier point about Piano & Breakbeat combos, I'm going to give Omni Trio another nod. Even Angels Cast Shadows is chock full of examples of what I'm talking about, and is an album I should probably credit more as it only barely doesn't make my list of 10/10 albums, 16 years on from release and I'd argue it still sounds pretty fresh in the grand scheme of things.. I absolutely adore that combo of deep basslines and twinkling piano and some strings even get involved towards the end which are a treat too. Check it out if this kinda thing is your bag as much as it is mine.



-Claude Van Foxbat