I’ve fallen in love twice in the past few months. The first was nearly a heartbreak, and I can only blame myself, the second was easy. The two records I lost my heart to were, as follows: Galcher Lustwerk – I Neva Seen (Willow Remix), and Not Even Noticed – Microtransitions, which was released on Craigie Knowes back in July, and led me on quite a journey. It happened as follows…
I was guilty of something that I find myself doing occasionally, but not too often, as I actually like to listen to my records, purely as a listener, as well as mixing them – I repeatedly played the tune I bought the EP for, and could not tell you anything about the other tracks on it. I also made all my friends who came into Plant & Deck shortly after it landed buy it. Looking back, this was a slightly strange move. Obviously, I encourage people to buy the tunes in the shop when I’m either working there, or just hanging around keeping Phil and Joe company. But if I really madly love a tune, and I know that I will definitely want to play it often as a DJ, I don’t necessarily want all my close pals who I often play gigs and/or back to back sets with to have it too. If they have a dig and find it – or if I think it’s actually more for them than for me, that’s sound, but I’m probably not going to lead every one of them straight to a tune I need to play out soon, and end up with a crew of matching bags. I guess sometimes, though, you just want to share the love buzz, and so I did, echoing “Listen to this! How good is it? You HAVE to buy it!” until all the copies were gone. I think that all possibly happened during the course of about a day. It was certainly a very short time.
A1, Electromagnetic Field, is the tune that sent me slightly insane. It’s just absolutely slamming. A fast-paced, beat driven banger, it charges on for six or so minutes, upbeat and relentlessly full of energy. Not a great deal happens, and it doesn’t need to.
It took me quite a while to even remember who the producer of this is, and I chuckled when I went to remind myself, and discovered they were called ‘not even noticed’ (all lower case). Indeed so. That one amazing tune overshadowed all else for me.
The heartbreak in this tale happened a little while after. I wondered why I was struggling to mix this tune when it was so simple and I didn’t recall it having any kind of non-clocking issues when I’d first had a go. Anyway, I was playing tunes in my studio room at home and my housemate was sat across making some artwork while I mixed.
“Wow! That record is really warped!” he said.
I took a look. It was like a fucking S shape. I have theories about how and when this happened, and they are irrelevant, so I’ll not continue on that trajectory. What matters, and did matter, was having a playable copy of the EP. I found a wry humour in the fact that, if I had not goaded every man and his dog into buying the fucking thing, there would most likely still be copies in the shop.
It turned out, too, that new copies were sold out everywhere I looked. Thankfully, Phil managed to order one from the distributor. This, however, was not the happy ending it could have been. The order arrived, but my beloved EP was not in the box.
I cried.
I actually didn’t cry, but if I was inclined to tears often, I probably would have done. I think I may possibly have laughed instead, because I have an irritatingly dark sense of humour, and for fuck’s sake!
There was, of course, a copy on Discogs. £29 plus postage. Which meant I’d now spent over £40 on one tune. Sometimes, you just have to. It was entirely worth it, and I don’t regret a thing.
The next curveball in this story was that I got a card through the door saying I’d had a parcel left with a neighbour. I went to knock on and realised that, because of parts of my street having been rebuilt, the house with the number before ours was not next door. I then went on an Alice in Wonderland-esque wild goose chase where I discovered that the house the parcel had been delivered to did not actually exist.
It would make this little story so much better if it had been this particular record in the package, but it turned out it wasn’t (the parcel at Schrodinger’s House had actually been returned to the sender, and all was well in the end). I did, at the time, think it probably was, though, and I thought this situation was, in equal parts, deeply annoying and absolutely brilliant. Anyway, I am a fan of true things, so I won’t embellish for effect – the Craigie Knowes record was delivered not long later, to the right house, and in mint condition.
I have now listened to it all. The whole thing.
I was happy to find that the rest of the EP is pretty excellent as well. The other tunes are more euphoric (in the generic sense of the word), and less banging, but also really fast (I would say the slowest is around 140 bpm). These are sparkly, rather than slamming.
Anyway, that all happened. I’m looking for a nice picture frame for my warped copy.
What I am sincerely hoping is that things run a much smoother course with the other tune that has truly knocked me for six in recent times. I do love a funny story, but more than that I love having playable records.
So here’s the other one… Willlow’s remix of Galcher Lustwerk’s ‘I Neva Seen’ on his white label series. This is creepy, sleazy, dark banger. I was tipped off about it at around 5am on a Monday morning, in a dark room, having been awake since I got up on Saturday. Which was was the perfect time to hear this, because it is a deeply seshy record. It’s quite hard, but it gives more than a nod to that old electroclash sound. In fact, on first listen, before I knew anything much about it, I made the comment that it could almost have been made by The Hacker. The original was made by Galcher Lustwerk ten years ago – a little after that sleazy electro sound was in vogue, and it’s more Heard than Hacker. It’s nice, but Willow’s remix is – for my tastes at least – magnificent. A late, dark, trippy tune with eerie vocals. If you don’t care that it’s rained all year because you never go outside, and you never see the daytime, this is the theme tune for your life.
The flip side of the record is a DJ tool version of the track, and an actually useful one, and decent in its own right. Anyway, like the session in which this record landed in my life, this piece of writing is quite long, and should really come to an end. I hope you enjoy these tunes as much as I do.