Revisited Album: K&D Sessions (1998)

Let’s turn back time to 1998. Steve Jobs has just announced the Apple iMac; upcoming band The Spice Girls have been making waves across the Atlantic; Titanic has just broken box office records… and combat trousers are all the rage.

But if you were anywhere in the late 90s, whether you were sinking into the sofa at a blunted-out after party or sipping an espresso at a European café; it’s extremely likely K&D Sessions was playing in the background. It’s the album you don’t know anything about. You recognise snippets and can’t place where you’ve heard them before, but its dubbed-out blissful breakbeats have been making heads nod for over 15 years…. With used copies going for over £150, it’s obvious enough people managed to find out about the album, with an astounding 1,000,000 copies to date and a reissue that’s come out in March 2015.

The modern vinyl resurgence has been mirrored with the rising trend in ‘collector’s editions’. This particular collector’s edition reissue, featuring a fold-out centre sleeve, has been formatted for with audiophiles in mind. Splitting the original album over 5 LPs (one more than the original release) and offering digital download in 24-bit were decisions taken to maximise sound quality for the re-mastered release. Although the sound quality is perceived as slightly better off the record, the need for the digital to be formatted in 24-bit, a change in quality that even experienced studio engineers struggle to perceive a difference in, strikes as a bit of a novelty move.

While it may be easy to see the album being disconnected to dance music culture due to its ‘lounge music’ label, the very opposite is true. K&D Sessions offers a snapshot to club culture of the 90s: it has the half-time, crunchy, trip-hop beats, the dubbed-out effects drawing from Jamaica’s sound system culture, and nods towards the (then) flourishing UK Drum & Bass movement. Since then, electronic music trends have shifted following club culture. Current dance music trends have moved away from this half/double-time culture and into the tempo middle ground occupied, in majority, by 4×4 music.

Cue Richard Dorfmeister and Peter Kruder, two hip-hop heads hailing from Vienna. The pair came out of nowhere in 1993 with an EP (‘G-Stoned’) filled with hypnotic sample-heavy tracks laced with breakbeats, dubbed out effects, and a cover spoofing Simon and Garfunkel. The EP’s success enabled the duo to find popularity as a leftfield-branch within the then flourishing trip-hop movement and the momentum from which resulted in befriending and meeting similar minded European artists, including British Ninja Tune and Munich’s Compost Crew. It was these connections that bore the foundations for K&D Sessions and Kruder and Dorfmeister decided to remix over fifteen different tracks from the aforementioned artists in their own unique dubbed-out style; the K&D Sessions’ ‘reverse-remix’ format was totally unique.

Written on a sampler, a handful of effects units and an old mixing desk, K&D Sessions drew critical success across the board. This continued tradition of downtempo electronic music kick-started with the introduction of club ‘chill-out rooms’ in 1992 (a club feature that considering recent deaths, is a mystery why they were ever phased-out).

Tracks such as Rollin’ On Chrome (Wild Motherfucker Dub), or the outrageously named…..

Donaueschingen (Peter Kruder’s Donaudampfschifffahrtsgesellschaftskapitänskajütenremix)

…. showed that this was music to be taken lightly, striking with listeners as being completely separated from mainstream trends and culture. The independent label, ‘G-Stoned’, embraces the tongue-in-cheek nature of the music; a true ‘fuck-the-man’ album to discuss conspiracy theories over, while your mate Darren coughs up his lungs up from that lethal lemon haze.

But although light-hearted on the surface, the music itself could not be further from it. The exquisite production drenches the album in a dark, melancholy tone. Warm, fuzzy Rhodes and catchy bass riffs make the album instantly accessible for the new listener. Jazz Master shows off the duo’s precise rhythm programming, while their re-work of Depeche Mode’s Useless strikes as a much more traditional ‘song’ on the album. Catchy vocal phrases stick out at you over the largely instrumental album (special mention going to Bomb The Bass’s ‘Never fake and I’m never phoney. I’ve got more flavour than a pack of macaroni’.)

Perhaps it was the album’s (too?) easy listening sound that, like any good piece of music, led to its overplay. Succumbing to a similar fate as Bonobo, Royksopp along with the rest of the 2000s electronica; the fitting suitability as background music meant it was far too common to hear in bars, cafes, galleries…etc., and soon audiences began to tire of K&D Sessions.

The fact that the duo has only released three tracks together over the years since the album’s release has only added to their legendary reputation. Potentially a reply to the industry’s over-releasing of electronic acts; the duo even turned down major remix requests from U2 and Elvis Costello. However, that’s not to say the pair have left the music industry. With a live show that’s been touring since 1997, a steady stream of releases on label G-Stone’s and Dorfmeister’s own live-project ‘Tonka’ have kept the Viennese pair very busy.

In essence, what K&D Sessions offers is a snapshot into the forgotten history of easy-listening electronic music, containing an accumulation of numerous foundation genres that have evolved into the electronic music we listen to today.

So unplug your Wi-Fi, dig out an oversized shirt and a pair of blue jeans, and let the soothing tones of Kruder and Dorfmeister transport you somewhere far away, long, long ago…

Review: ‘Pearson Sound’ – Pearson Sound

Things have been pretty quiet recently for David Kennedy. With only one single on 7” format getting a release last year, it was hard to imagine that the producer, famed for his work under Ramadanman and Pearson Sound, hadn’t got a larger project in the works. Now, with a release date set for March 6^th, Kennedy tackles the hardest format in music: the dance music album.

The idea to release an album only came to Kennedy in 2014. Some of the earliest tracks on the album were written after his brief break from DJing 2011, while later ones were created in the run up to the albums launch.

This spread of 3 years over the album’s writing period is a not unusual for a debut album, especially as Kennedy cited his desire for the album to represent years of experimentation. But for an already well-established artist with 12” releases on some of the UKs leading underground dance music labels, the question begs as to why the material was not snapped up and put out sooner?

In recent interviews , Kennedy regularly reiterates he wanted a ‘disorientating’ feel for the listener and to try and paint an ‘apocalyptic’ landscape. Swill embodies this perfectly, with hypnotic, jagged polyrhythms whirring over dark, industrial decay. Russet takes us marching through a rigid, snare-intensive workout that makes you want to stand up and start banging on the ceiling. Its subtle, dreamy chords that occasionally seep in are a welcome respite from madness, but are disappointingly few and far between on this album. Certain tracks feel as though they are too raw and simplistic for an album; Kennedy states Asphalt Sparkle sounds like ‘the world is ending’ on a sound system; but this perhaps hits the nail on the head as it feels that a lot of the sensation is lost in a personal listening environment.

As a listener, you are very conscious that you’re listening to a selection of club tracks. The sporadic nature of the compositions makes the album feel like a compilation rather than a coherent body of work. Pearson Sound closes with a technical synth show off that, while impressive, doesn’t really evoke feelings for the listener (a fitting embodiment of the record), leaving the listener to wonder whether the content would be better suited to a series of 12” singles. This is not a release to sit down and listen to, but rather one to play as loud as you can get away with.

Two brothers balancing differences? Or brothers wanting bank balance differences?

It seemed Noel Gallagher never really wanted to be famous.

“I don’t want to get too big. I’d Love to do Wembley Stadium but where do you go after that?”

In this 1994 interview from PEOM; Oasis were about to play a tiny 400-capactiy venue in Brighton, and they’re debut album Definitely Maybe was due to be released in a couple of months.

“We had all these ideas we were going to be this maverick outcast band from Manchester –   We were going to shove it up them for two years and then we’d spilt up.”

Unfortunately for Noel, Oasis went on to sell an estimated 70 million records worldwide, and have been confirmed by Guinness World Records as the most successful UK act between 1995 and 2005. Their fights, feuds and controversy were well loved by the media and fans alike, resulting in some legendary quotes from the band’s front man.

In 2009, the band announced they were breaking up, after a long-standing feud between the band’s brothers, the pair went on to form their own solo projects (Noel’s High Flying Birds, and Liam’s Beady Eye) and the majority of fans thought they’d never see the band together again.

On April 19^th, the Daily Mirror announced the band’s intention to reform, after a 6-year hiatus, saying the band’s brothers had reached a ‘gentleman’s agreement’ and were speaking again. Without doubt, a re-launch of the band could be an incredibly popular move and, with a very strong fan base worldwide, subsequent album or tour deals could bring in millions of pounds to the brothers.

So the question begs: ‘was there motivation behind the reformation beyond money?’

In 2013, Noel stated that if Oasis ever did reform, he ‘wouldn’t be in it’, claiming ‘there is no band anymore’. Noel’s own band, The Highflying Birds have enjoyed widespread critical success, with the band’s debut album reaching no.1 in its first week, and topping the UK’s official vinyl chart upon it’s launch. On the other hand, Liam’s own project Beady Eye did not mirror the success of his brother, with only one UK Top 40 single since 2013 (The Roller), peaking at number 31. And so, Liam announced its demise late last year. On top of this, Liam has been going through a damaging divorce from Meg Matthews in 2001, and a £2million child-support lawsuit from Liza Ghorbani this year. Because of this; the Mancunian rocker could be struggling financially.

Comparisons must be drawn to the split and reformation of The Stone Roses in a bizarre similarity to the direction that Oasis seem to be heading with their reformation. The Stone Roses’ reformation was largely accredited to Ian Brown’s costly divorce bill, bizarrely similar to the financial trouble that Noel Gallagher went through.

Noel even hinted to Oasis’ own reformation, saying ‘If The Stone Roses can do it, then anyone can do it’. The success has been proven too, with The Stone Roses first returning gig at Heaton Park selling 150,000 tickets in 14 minutes.

So with the contrasting success of each brother’s output, it seems as if Noel still has no incentive for reformation, and brother Liam has quite a large one. Now we are finally glimpsing the return of Oasis, one has to ponder if Liam was the problem the whole time.

Noel has famously been outspoken on his opinions of Liam, calling him ‘rude, arrogant, intimidating and lazy’ (and that’s just one example). However, the fact that the rest of the band stuck by Liam after Noel’s departure suggests there are two sides to this story.

However, with Noel stating several months ago that Oasis would only ever reform for the money, it seems like this could be the case. It’s very probable that, if Liam IS struggling financially, he would be willing to bury previous problems to reform. The promise of future revenue would certainly be in the scale to repair the finances of any celebrity, in fact in 1997 former drummer Tony McCarroll tried to sue Oasis for up to £18million after the ousted him from the band.

A more pressing issue is whether the band will actually get around to touring, or recording any new material. The brothers’ famously turbulent relationship risks that they could easily have yet another feud and the band could split apart yet again.

It truth, no one can be sure if Oasis really did reform for creative means, or purely for the monetary gain. However due to the outspoken nature of the band’s brothers; I’m sure we’ll find out soon enough.

Oasis Announces Reformation

On April 19^th, Oasis announced the band’s intention to reform, after a 6-year hiatus, saying the band’s brothers had reached a ‘gentleman’s agreement’ and were speaking again. Without doubt, a re-launch of the band could be an incredibly popular move and, with a very strong fan base worldwide, subsequent album or tour deals could have bring in millions in revenue to the brothers.

Oasis – they’ve sold an estimated 70 million records worldwide, and have been confirmed by Guinness World Records as the most successful UK act between 1995 and 2005. Their fights, feuds and controversy were well loved by the media and fans alike, but in 2009, the band announced they were breaking up, following a long-standing feud between the band’s brothers. The pair went on to form their own solo projects with Noel’s High Flying Birds, and Liam’s Beady Eye.

In 2013, Noel stated that if Oasis ever did reform, he ‘wouldn’t be in it’, claiming ‘there is no band anymore’. Noel’s solo project, The Highflying Birds have enjoyed widespread critical success, with the band’s debut album reaching no.1 in its first week, and topping the UK’s official vinyl chart upon it’s launch. On the other hand, Liam’s own project Beady Eye did not mirror the success of his brother, with only one UK Top 40 single since 2013 (The Roller), peaking at number 31. And so, Liam announced its demise late last year.

Comparisons must be drawn to the split and reformation of fellow Mancunians The Stone Roses, in a bizarre similarity to the direction that Oasis seem to be heading with their reformation. The Stone Roses’ reformation was supposedly accredited to Ian Brown’s costly divorce bill; bizarrely similar to the financial trouble that Noel Gallagher went through after a damaging divorce.

Noel even hinted to Oasis’ own reformation, saying ‘If The Stone Roses can do it, then anyone can do it’. The success has been proven too, with The Stone Roses first returning gig at Heaton Park selling 150,000 tickets in 14 minutes.

The true intentions of the band are hard to gauge, due to the fact that no plans have officially been announced of yet regarding the release of new material, or even touring plans. Due to this, it is unlikely that fans will be able to learn of any creative reasons until either of these is announced, as it is likely that they will be accompanied by a press-campaign designed to re-kindle current interest in the band.

A Discussion with: Viers

21-year old Jordon Saxton peers over the top of his redstripe at me, takes a sip, and then pauses.

“I don’t think there’s a definite answer; sometimes I can picture a track exactly how I want a track to be, but then other times I just play around with sounds and see where it takes me…”

His laid-back approach to writing music is refreshing at a time when there has never been so much pressure on young artists.

“I don’t think any artist ever perceives themselves as ‘forward thinking’ – you just have to do what you want, and see where things go.”

The successes of Saxton’s aliases are a definite testament to this levelheaded approach to the DJ/artist moniker. Splitting himself between the futuristic beats of Viers, the sleazy, sample-based house of Lee Konitz, and the face-melting techno as Unklone, the young producer from Leeds already has a collection of strong releases under his belt. Last year, his 2-track single on Breach’s NakedNaked imprint was met with rave reviews, and with an LP forthcoming on Church, the future is looking bright for an artist on the brink of a supernova.

“Your approach of writing under a variety of alias’ differs from the traditional ‘one name’ artist approach. How come you decided on this direction?”

Jordon Saxton: I feel having multiple aliases helps the creative output I do a lot. It’s allowed me to just make the music I want when I want, and not to be bogged down thinking about whether something sounds like a ‘Viers’ track. [In] terms of writing, its all relative to the tune I’m making, I always start with a blank project and build it up based on the idea I have at the time. At the time I started making the Unklone stuff. I made some tracks that sounded a bit to intense for my Viers project, and it kinda all fell into place, and I felt that I didn’t really need to have just one name. It wasn’t so much as I thought about it, as it was just a natural progression.

“Do you get much inspiration from non-musical sources?”

JS: Anime and Manga inspire a lot of what I write too. While I was writing forthcoming LP on church, I was reading a lot of a manga called Freesia and I think it influenced the music a lot. As I wrote each track during different sections of the story line, it felt as though I was subconsciously writing a soundtrack for the manga. There’s a track on the LP called ‘Moonlighting’, a really dub-techno bit, and I wrote that during the dark, final battle of the manga, trying to get the same sort of gloomy vibe to it.

I name most of my tracks after things in manga and anime too. I think it gives everything much more of a personal touch, as far too much of dance music seems to have really boring names; usually just a collection of numbers or something like ‘bass trak’…etc.

“When do you usually write most your music?”

JS: I actually sneak away from my bedroom and write most of it late at night, I think that’s pretty typical. I’ll lie in bed with my girlfriend watching TV, and she’ll fall asleep after about 10 mins, so I take that as my cue to sneak off into the lounge to work on music. I used to sit in bed next to her to write, but waking her up with a bright screen or having the volume too loud was getting me in trouble to often, so now I have an ASBO on making tunes in bed.

“I can imagine that must result in some pretty weird dreams.”

JS: I actually had a dream that I was in Berghain, playing a bassline set, wearing a shell suit and a TN cap!

“Representing the north?”

JS: Yeah, but it was mainly about the thought of ‘would that go down?’ Like, would they accept it in a typically German techno establishment? Cause it’s quite a niche UK-sound, and would probably be completely off-the-wall for them. I can’t help but feel there are a lot of similarities between the sound of Shed’s Wax alias, and UK garage (of which bassline is an off-shoot). I mean, the percussion’s pretty much exactly the same; it’s just missing the more obvious nostalgic samples.
Everyone seems to think Berghain’s all about mega-serious, pounding 4×4 techno, but there’s actually a lot of variation in the music played there. A friend of mine Soundbwoy Killah had breaks track played there, and Scuba’s dubstep night Sub:Stance had been going for 5 years before it finally closed in 2013.

“There’s a lot of elitism in that scene though.”

JS: Definitely, especially in underground music. It’s not annoying so much, as more tiring. I think it’s most obvious on the Internet. You see it a lot on a certain infamous Facebook group for new music. People will be like ‘Oh you don’t listen to this obscure 20-press dub techno? Mate you just don’t know what the fuck’s going on!’ People like to feel as though they’re in a clique; like they know their shit and what’s going on. There’s so much music out there! If someone else is just finding out about somebody new now, that’s a good thing! No one ever started off getting into like electronic music with Basic Channel. I’ll never know everything that’s ever happened in jazz, house, techno and funk. I’m always gonna be finding something new.

“But it’s only really been in the last decade, with the Internet, that people have been able to have all this music at their disposal”

JS: I was looking through some old ‘record-collecting’ magazines recently from before the Internet. What they did was take out ads in the magazine saying ‘we have 500-odd rare 2nd hand records. Here’s a list of them, and you can call this number to order them’. It was pretty much the 1980s, telephone equivalent of Discogs.

“But hypothetically you could see they’ve ‘mega-rare’ Prince acetate, but you wouldn’t have a clue how it sounded back then”

JS: Well Discogs has the Youtube integration now, where pretty much every release has an accompanying video of the music, but it has a lot of negative effects. I mean, I’m less inclined to actually go out and physically go crate digging now. I’ve found ridiculously good tracks through Discogs that cost like £2. I mean I could get four or five old records for the cost of a new one, which means I’m a lot less likely to go to record shops and actually find out about new releases. Because of this, it’s like every new track is now competing with every record that’s ever been released, and that’s a dangerous state for the music industry to be in…