Friday, 4 March 2016

Misled Convoy 'Translations' Review





Artist: Misled Convoy



Title: Translations



Label: Dubmission Records



Released: 1st April









This release is a selection of re-mixes from Pitch Black's Mike Hodgson under his Misled Convoy moniker, which covers a broad pallet of styles from long established and up-and-coming artists across the globe.


The album commences with the scanner mix of 'Nuerotrash' from London disco-punks Feral Five which is a dubbed out electro-rock that seems to retain all the original punk vocal elements to good effect.. While the earth will have two suns re-mix of Holotronica's (Stuart Warren Hill of Hexstatic) 'Super Nova' takes you on a journey into space tinkering with scientific monologue and bubbly electro-dub. This is followed by the borrowed time mix of 'Do You Know Where Your Going?' by Japan's Supercozi (Zen Lemonade) a chilled out dub which utilises a lyrical reggae vocal that works better when dubbed out for me.


Moving across to Mike's homeland with the next track re-working 'Please Wake Up' by the Adults a Kiwi rock supergroup formed by Shihad frontman Jon Toogood of which I am blissfully unaware. I'd never have had this down as a rock original to me it comes across something akin to the afx re-mixes of Seefeel in the early 90's which is no bad thing. Some of the previous styles meet somewhere in the middle with a dubbed out re-mix of 'Sufi' by the U.K.'s Flies + Flies which seems to stitch together elements of gothic, arabic, ambient, shoegaze and industrial dub fairly seamlessly.


The re-mix of 'Lost in the Valley of Scintalla Strings' by Sheffield's ambient audio-visual duo Animat, is a deep and atmospheric piece which combines dub techno with a cinematic and classical feel. In contrast the pastscape re-mix of Banco De Gaia's 'Wimble Toot' takes you on an elongated intro of ambient voices and sound, before the bass line is employed and the horns take the piece into the realms of dub reggae.  Then moving back across to the other side of the globe Mike then gives one of his own Misled Convoy tracks 'Leap Beneath' a re-rub in the far more expected reggae style to close.


To summarise I'm really impressed with this collection it's a real mixed bag of genres and styles at times ambient and atmospheric others industrial and rock-edged. However, the common link thread is as ever the dub.


Review by Woodzee


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