Saturday, 10 October 2015

Liquid Sound Design 'Dakini Mother Tongue' Compilation Review






Artist: Various





Title: Dakini Mother Tongue





Label: Liquid Sound Design





Released: 10th October










Liquid Sound Design was created in 1998 by Youth as a sister label to Dragonfly showcasing the more down-tempo output aimed at post-club listening. Eventually, the management of the label was taken on by Pathaan and is currently in the capable hands of Robin Triskele.


The album commences with the Ozora mix of 'Return To The River Ganges by Celtic Vedic and features a wealth of established talent from the world music scene including legendary dub bassist Jah Wobble and Youth himself. As you may of anticipated the track is a heady exotic fusion of Celtic and Indian vibes easing you in gently before dropping the dubby bass line and introducing Shri's sultry vocals (who some may recognise from previous work with TaTva Kundalini and Gods Robots with Janaka Selecta). This is followed by the Bhanda Dub of 'Amethyst Corrida' by Wadada Youth Mundy which maintains the theme with tribal drums rolling along behind melodic harp strings, flutes, sitars and an orchestral violin break which complements the piece perfectly.


The album then moves away from the eastern mood with the Irresistible Force Dub Mix of Tecktures feat. Mixmaster Morris 'Giant Robots In The Sky' which is frankly a beautiful piece of dubbed out choral ambience. The compilation then switches back to the eastern fusions with Kuba's 'By The Foot Of Your Mountain' which begins with a Ravi Shankar'esque Sitar intro slowly teasing intermittent drum hits before the laid-back dub and Indian vocal takes full effect.


With the general stance of this compilation so far it's no surprise that Youth's Navigator Dub of Suns of Arqa's 'Navigator' is plucked from the previous L.S.D. re-mix E.P. packed full of tribal chants  & flutes that provide the listener with a dubbed out chill before exploding into pounding drums with trance like sequencing sections. The mood switches once again with the Bhanda Dub of Brother Culture vs Youth on 'People Love The Music' a bass heavy dance hall riddim bringing the reggae back into the dubs.


Yet again the style reverts back to the east with Ghostliner's 'Phoenix' an exotic dub with tribal vocal stabs and percussion that's rather fitting to the compilation as a whole. The album closes with the long awaited return of the Dub Trees (Youth, Greg Hunter and Twisted Records Simon Posford) where the Youth vs Cosmic Trigger Dub of 'Future Roots' is a lovely fusion of speaker shaking reggae dub and psybient sounds.


To conclude this is a solid release and continues the quality and style fans of Liquid Sound Design have come to expect. There's a heavy eastern element to the album which made me wonder why they didn't stick with that format throughout the whole release. However, I can answer my own question as the tracks that didn't fit that pigeon hole are too good to leave out.


Reviewed by Woodzee.



**For the chance of winning a Bandcamp redeem code for this release tune into the Chill Out Sessions on Boxfrequency.fm at 20:00 G.M.T. on Sunday the 25th of October and keep your eyes peeled on the facebook event page https://www.facebook.com/events/1494797440820745/ **


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