Unone & Western 'The Last Showdown' Review

Artist: Uone & Western

Title: Last Showdown

Label: Beat & Path

Released: 29^th May

This single is a pre-cusor to the forthcoming album ‘The Lone Wrangler’ where the aim is to merge the futuristic space themed journeys of the cosmic traveller with the blues of the western cowboy.

The original piece with it’s firm piano keys, cosmic meanderings, harmonica whisps and touches of slide guitar is clearly influenced by Scandinavian artist such as Lindstrom or Todd Terje with a slight western twist. The result if you like that sound sits quite well.

This is where it gets interesting the re-mix duties have been handed to the Desert Dwellers more associated with fusing psy-chill and bass music with Bedouin instrumentation rather than an artist more associated with the original. They haven’t tried to re-write this as a psy-bass number or tried to drag the sounds towards the east. However, they have enhanced the piece and this is the version I would play.

This release will be available on Beatport and Spotify on the 29^th of May and all other platforms on the 6^th of June

Reviewed by Woodzee

Beat & Path · Uone & Western - Last Showdown (Original Mix) PREMIERE

Exclusive Black Gauge Interview

Black Gauge is a recent project between the ambient dj/producer DF Tram and Zagreb based theatrical production engineer Villi. Which at times explores a slighty dark feel to ambient production, reflecting the dark times they felt was approaching society as a whole.

1) Welcome back Dylan nice of you to join us again and hi Villi good to meet you. Could you tell us how you met Dylan and how the Black Gauge project came to fruition?

VILLI: We met in Zagreb, through our mutual friends Mixmaster Morris and Mario Lalich, who hooked us up. One day Dylan came over to my studio, and brought along his recent release ‘Serenitay Infinitay’. We had a nice talk about the world of music while listening to his album. He brought up this initiative to try to make some tunes together, and it seemed like great idea to me. My life was in a turmoil at the time and working on something fresh, with a new kid in town seemed like right thing to do.



2) What was the process in combining your individual parts of the production?

VILLI: We were together in the studio for most of the time. Either in my studio or at Dylan’s place. Both are different and provide different vibes. Mine is more of a ground floor studio dwelling with loads of cables, gear and instruments and a creative chaos vibe opposed to Dylans place which is on the 4th floor with nice view, a very comfortable couch and his setup: laptop, turntables, mixer, synth and a lot of vinyl. We exchanged some tracks over the net but those were finished ideas, these times will probably call for more net based work.

DF Tram: Yes, I think working in our own studios, and basically rotating from one studio to the other, gave us a different perspective for every session… imho jams and productions just sound different, depending on your environment, and going to Villi’s studio gave me the idea for the band name. When I would take the tram to his studio here in Zagreb, the name of the tram line is called “Črnomerec” and when I put that word into google translate it translated to "Black Gauge”, so it fit . 

3) In terms of hardware or software did Villi introduce you to anything new that impressed you?

DF Tram: YES! for sure… Villi has a different way of working, and has a very good ear and talent for production. He is a very proficient engineer with lots of experience in theatre. So I think it gave some of our tunes that interesting combination of the theatrical but also very technical; if that makes sense. I’m a bit theatrical myself and love comedy and drama, so I think that comes through in some of our tunes. As far as hardware goes, Villi has quite the collection of tools at his disposal, and was often using different machines or apps… We even used one of his old cassette decks he had for some of the samples… This is a special tape deck made for blind people, that has interesting pitch/speed controls on it, so you can do interesting things with tapes.


4) The album Underhill is already available on Bandcamp, when is it expected to hit the other platforms?

DF Tram: it will be out on May 21^st. Additionally, we are also planning a cd/vinyl release in the near future. 

5) Do you foresee this being an on-going collaboration or is it simply a one-off?


Villi: I really enjoy working and performing with Dylan so i see and feel this as an on-going collaboration, we have some nice tracks yet to finish and i hope that soon we find the time and maybe even the place to make some new tracks together.

DF Tram: Yep, what Villi said. In other words, I think this could be the beginning of a beautiful friendship. ?Thanks so much again for having us Martin! Your site is a very valuable resource for artists and connoisseurs in our community, so we really appreciate it!

Potlatch 'The Voyager' Review

Artist: Potlatch

Title: The Voyager

Label: Cosmicleaf

Released: 4^th May

Being an unfamiliar name to me I had to do a little research to his background. Not only has he released his music on a number of labels (most notably Waveform aside from Cosmicleaf), he is also been active as a musical director for films, documentaries and most consistently theatre productions in South Korea.

However, there’s none of the traditional sounds of the far eastern instruments on this single. In fact it has a positively Mediterranean sound, where trip-hop beats are overlayed with harmonica and acoustic guitar, providing the kind of sound that is perfect for relaxing on a sun lounger or hammock, while you soak up the sun’s rays. On this basis Potlatch is a name I shall have to remember to watch out for in the future.

Reviewed by Woodzee

Links

https://cosmicleaf.bandcamp.com/album/the-voyager

Misled Convoy x Uncle Fester on Acid 'Twilight 32' Review

Artist:

Misled Convoy x 

Uncle Fester on Acid

Title:

Twilight 32

Label:

Dubmission Records

Released:

15^th May 2020

Inspired by the Mad Professor’s re-interpretation of Massive Attack’s ‘Protection’ and Adrian Sherwood’s version of Primal Scream’s ‘Echo Dek’ Pat Dokter under the pseudonym Uncle Fester on Acid began his Aural Assault Astronaut series with his de-construction and re-interpretation of Pitch Black’s ‘Filtered Senses’. He returns with the 2nd instalment of the series, this time tackling Misled Convoy’s ‘Sixteen Sunsets’. The most recent and laid back release from Mike Hodgson’s solo project to date. The initial theme of the album was a collection of field recordings, sourced from his travels infused with his signature sound. Which also featured more emotional and melodic touches from a young songwriter Ines Dunn.

Aside from the opening intro I quickly established not only has Pat de-constructed and re-constructed the tracks, he has also done the same with the titles and the order. He begins with the fourth track of the initial album ‘Another Time’, a 5 ½ minute long drone with some lighter moments at the tail end of the piece. This now becomes ‘Another Place, Another Time, Another Dimension’, condensed down in time and featuring slow motion compressed bass from the word go. 

While the mid-point piano break of the closing track ‘Subject to Chance’ becomes the intro of ‘Changing the Subchance’ where he enhances the atmospherics of the laid back original and slowly morphs the piece into slow paced bass notes. The title track itself is re-named ‘Dawnstar 17.3’ where here and there little flurries of the original number is recognisable between the passages of fx utilised in the process.

Overall unless you’ve recently listened to the album, then all the differences applied in this production are probably not going to be as instantly noticeable as dub versions of well known songs. However, that said it is just as listenable as the original and the production work is cleverly done.

Reviewed by Woodzee

Links

https://smarturl.it/twilight32

https://misledconvoy.bandcamp.com/album/twilight-32

Moonkin & Dense 'Wave Soaring' Review

Artist:

Moonkin & Dense

Title:

Wave Soaring

Label:

Synchronos Recordings

Released:

20^th April

This release is a collaboration between up-and-coming Swedish artist Moonkin and the long established Dense from Germany. Advertised as psy-chill that covers melodic ambient tunes and well paced groovy beats.

I found this release as a whole something that is very easy to switch off too. Deep ambient synths with twitches of tones that flicker through the tracks, on occasion there’s a touch of guitar. A couple of tracks ‘Birds Eye View’ and ‘Starboard’ take the two-step approach in places. However, this is definitely leaning more towards chill out than out and out drum and bass.

While ‘Mermaid’s Call’ which as the title suggests features some vocal tones. I felt the overall vibe harps back to the beach bar sounds of Cafe Del Mar, with bird song, melodic flutes and guitar that lift off the slow paced drum patterns behind the piece. This for me is the stand out track and quite different to the rest of the release.

Reviewed by Woodzee

Links

https://synchronos-recordings.bandcamp.com/album/moonkin-dense-wave-soaring