Jan 25, 2010
Various Artists
Elevator Music: Vol. 1
fabric
This first compilation under the ironic moniker of ‘Elevator Music Volume 1’, from the gurus at fabric, has sought to give us the Farringdon club’s electronic weather forecast of 2010. We get club-circuit and radio-played veterans like Untold, Starkey and Om Unit flirting with new upstarts including XXXY, Hot City and Julio Bashmore. Hot City and XXXY kick things off with their not so subtle dedications to early house music, conjuring images of evening car drives with dad as a 12 year old, hypnotised by Kiss FM DJs Colin Dale and Colin Faver’s LSD-laced rave anthems. ‘If That’s How You Feel’ deserves a yellow smiley face slapped onto it; the warm synth bridge and sliced vocal loop seamlessly intertwine, anticipating the charged up acid drop.
2-step futurism is employed by Shortstuff, Skinnz and Mosca. The latter’s ‘Gold Bricks, I See You’ succinctly articulates his ephemeral approach to music making over an unfathomably short 6 minutes, flitting between techno, 2-step and even big band. Chopped female vocal? Check. Reinvigorated 2-step BPM? You betcha. Interspersed minimal techno keys? Are you kidding? All topped off with Rolf Harris providing the mono-wob subtlety. It is really quite stunning, and the type of track that should follow the path of Joy Orbison’s ‘Hyph Mngo’ in whipping everyone into a nostalgic Ibiza frenzy.
A final deft touch is the inclusion of Om Unit’s lush ‘Encoded’, which harnesses his lumbering industrial style of production with twinkling samples, giving an almost Kraftwerk-esque polish. I haven’t forgotten about Untold either. If there was such a thing as minimal grime, ‘Bad Girls’ would be it. It’s the sound of a man who effortlessly eschews the bass in ‘bass music’ for skittish percussion and frenetic beat patterns, resulting in something quite beautiful and otherworldly.
‘Elevator Music’ is an insightful example of how music is like a post-modern water cycle. It starts off fresh from the clouds, splattering people with new ideas and innovation, and then dries up whilst another weather system moves in for a while. Then it’s suddenly reborn with new flourishes and trappings. Everything here could be heard 10/15 years ago and yet it still sounds divergent. It even strays into grime, perhaps highlighting how the instrumental side of the often unfairly derided genre is beginning to seep into a deeper public consciousness. If you want an almanac for 2010, definitely get stuck in this lift, and for once, don’t ignore the music playing.
fabric Presents Elevator Music: Vol. 1 is out now.
