Throwback... Wednesday?

Trying to keep up with posting but motivation has been fluctuating, between the new and crap blogger 'redesign' that google is pushing, and the public transport system of my country as reliable as ever (I type, dripping with sarcasm). Anyway, point is that I *was* going to start this yesterday which would have made for a nice alliterative title but it wasn't to be.

Eyvind Earle - The Wave (1990)

So without anymore preamble let's talk about the tunes in question. First is short lived turn of the millennium music 'unit' as they were described SiLC. They dabbled with a wide variety of sounds during their brief run, and all of them very much of the era, running the gamut from moody trip hop to amen break fuelled Drum & Bass to just good old fashioned house. Their penultimate EP, Himegoto has a premium cut of this house sound in the simply titled Vibe, it's a gorgeous little encapsulation of the late 90's house that bled onto the radio. The real highlight however comes after the full force return from the extended breakdown at 3:20, Miki's delivery is just so full of passion it's almost infectious. Something about this one just hit extra special yesterday, which is why I'm talking about it here!



Throwing back further for the next one, long before Soichi Terada would treat us all to his slick brand of Drum & Bass, he produced a track called Sun Shower for Nami Shimada. I've posted it before (with some slightly incorrect information I think), Originally released in 1989, it's had a few represses since then and is surprisingly easy to get hold of thanks to Crème Organization's repress and digital versions. Listen through the slightly dramatic 10 seconds of the intro and what you get is a fantastically retro piece of Deep House, Terada is always good when he's working in that genre and this is no different. Sweeping synths and that driving bassline are surprisingly fresh all things considered. If you'd prefer a pure instrumental to get an unfiltered listen of that goodness there is one included on this EP!



And finally, returning to DMX Krew. I've long loved Ed from DMX's analogue synth noodling, and I dig the whole aesthetic he's going for with it too, think Chromeo but a good ~10 years before them and influenced by retro Electro instead of Funk and you're pretty much there if the cover didn't already tip you off. And to perfectly summarise this even more we have Place Called Love from '98's Nu Romantix. 15 seconds in and you're already greeted by the gorgeous melodic lead that's going to carry through the song, it's one of my all time favourites of Ed's, surprisingly powerful. For the first time in a while we actually have a demo of the one thing I bring up every time I mention DMX Krew and that is the lyrical content. It's not as intentionally ironic here and the vocoder certainly helps with that, the lyrics themselves are a little corny in their content but fitting given the genres it's a love letter to. It's a short album at only 9 tracks (and one of them is a remix of a track not on the album so more like 8), but if it's a crash course 101 into DMX Krew you're looking for - this is a very good jumping in point.



Keeping things consistent for now, but as mentioned before there's a lot of things on the plate at the minute. Going to be mainly midweek and weekend posts from now on I think. But I digress, as always: Stay safe and enjoy the music!

-CVF