Album Review: Escape Yourself - Footprintz

The debut album from the Footprintz duo, Clarian North and Adam Hunter, has bold aspirations. On embarking on creating Escape Yourself they aimed to make "a real album", one that captures the imagination and, possibly, reels you back in later on in life, helping to re-capture the past but shifting with the added perspective that comes with age:

"When I was 18 I had those albums you'd escape with. When we were making the Footprintz record that was really our aim - to produce an album that kids can listen and escape to."

For an album from a 'dance' duo on the respectable but relatively dance floor focused Visionquest, they have their work cut out for them - DJs just don't make those kind of albums.

Escape Yourself - Footprintz

And the reality is that I'm not sure anyone makes those kind of albums anymore. It's always difficult to judge the importance of the present as it happens but the age of the classic album feels largely over... Looking back at 2012's best releases and it's hard to envisage many of them resulting in a generation getting lost in them. Frank Ocean's Channel Orange, maybe... But the way people consume music, particularly young people, has changed.

Regardless, North & Hunter give it a good try, and Escape Yourself has moments where the effort pays off. There's more than a cursory nod to the eighties here, with Depeche Mode's dark-emotional-male sound a consistent reference point. The album also benefits from shining production work from, giving the whole album a polished but dank, basement feel.

Escape Yourself is an album built around the difficulty of growing up, the transition from youth to adulthood, where it often feels like your mature identity is escaping what you once were. It's this topic that the lyrics focus on, whether in confusion and alienation (Uncertain Change) or hapless temporal celebration (Zanzibar).

In one sitting it is a relatively heavy affair. The consistency of tone is in some ways admirable, yet over the course of nearly 70-minutes it feels a little like a series of laden sermons. There is not enough variety to break Escape Yourself up into acts and too much "album" to dwell in the one place it inhabits. It feels trapped by the past - that eighties sound - as much as it is inspired by it.

A shame, because the moments the album takes in are, individually, well worth a listen. The open analogue space of Dangers Of The Mouth, the heavily percussive and experimental The Nightingale and the sudden rush of hope that comes in the open vocal delivery on the bridge of Heaven Felt Like A Night.

Escape Yourself is clearly an album of devotion and Visionquest deserve to be commended for their clear willingness to take a risk. It's unlikely you will find this pumping out of a teenager's headphones though - it's just too focused on the past of its creators to do that. 

Escape Yourself is released through Visionquest on 18 March, available for pre-order from Amazon.co.uk on CD [affiliate link].

Album Review: DRM - Merveille & Crosson

Merveille & Crosson's debut album follows their two earlier EPs (DRM Part 1 and DRM Part 2) and expands on the vision of those releases to create a full length piece. There are nine tracks in total here and all six tracks from the previous EPs return. They are good enough to justify a place in long-play format but it does knock the album in value for money stakes if you have both of those previous releases.

The eclectic freestyle approach of those EPs very much remains here but the album is held together as a whole, something I doubted would be possible based on my experience of DRM Part 2 earlier this year.

DRM - Merveille & Crosson

DRM opens with 'Nymphean', a track of gentle, warm water-sounds and flickering echoes. It feels very different to anything on either of the previous EPs - soulful, considered and welcoming - and it is hard not to be left wanting more.

This experimental approach towards music for late night listening recurs throughout the album. 'Pending' makes even more sense situated here in the album's opening third than it did on DRM Pt 2. The gentle piano refrains and layered percussion both delicate and funky. Similarly 'At The Seams' provides a deep, jazz-influenced moment, Arthur Simonini's piano playing unravelling in a bed of ambient noise.

There are more upbeat moments too, though they never lose the desire to confound expectations. Much of the impact of Ricardo Villalobos (seemingly everyone's muse these days) can be felt here. The title track sounds like someone tidying a warehouse to dance music but whilst the found sounds can distract it is the texture and taught bass line that glues the track together. Similarly 'Orca', upbeat and driving, twinkles The electronics feel like they want to fold the listener up into a warm place, inspiring dancing shapes. Both tracks are destined for dance floors but fit in here

without detracting from the album's clear intelligence.

The relative paucity of new material is a poke in the eye to fans but the result is an album of strong, flowing, sophisticated electronic music.

DRM is released on Monday through Visionquest, available to pre-order from Amazon.co.uk on CD [affiliate link].

EP Review: New Ships - Benoit & Sergio

Benoit & Sergio have become one of my favourite duos in the past year or so. Their EP releases on both Visionquest and DFA have contained moments of sheer brilliance.

New Ships - Benoit & Sergio

This new release comes out on Visionquest, following up on their Where The Freaks Have No Name EP. That release featured the gloriously disgruntled love-lost-to-the-k-hole anthem 'Walk And Talk', so hopes are high for this new one...

New Ships opens with 'Lipstick & Lace' - a frisky, funk strut with vocals dedicated to an irresistible female. You know, the kind that wants to make you do the mash-potato. Benoit & Sergio's talent is always in their particular blend of warm bass with cool, metallic synths played in a funky way - as shown in great effect to the piano-embellished outro here.

In my opinion though the duo are at their best when the melodies are allowed to dominate. Which is exactly what they do on 'Not In Your Nature', a track of passive-aggressive missives. The vocals and pads are layered beautifully here, giving the sensation of swimming through the thick, queasy feeling you get in the knot of your stomach when something goes badly askew... It's strangely relaxing yet the whole song is clearly about being taken advantage of.

The EP's title track has a distinctive, prominent looping bass line that performs the foundations for some semi-liquid guitar that almost oozes and yet still feels brittle around the edges. If Daft Punk made music for a downer with massive bass it would probably sound like this, the vocal a cry for help - "So many nooses around my neck, as I stare at the sea waiting for new ships" - the music the sound of dancing on through it.

Another terrific EP. Now give me an album.

New Ships is released through Visionquest on 15 October.

EP Review: DRM PT 2 - Merveille & Crosson

DRM PT 2 follows up on last year's DRM on this vinyl only sampler of Merveille & Crosson's forthcoming album. I hadn't heard DRM prior to this and whilst Visionquest, the label behind this release, undoubtedly have one of the best track records around at present I was still a little floored by this release.

DRM PT2 - Merveille & Crosson

The EP is made up of three tracks but there is little direct connection between them aside from their relative proximity on this EP. 'Again & Again' starts as an experimental IDM track - a rounded, bumpy bassline and snatches of clattering background noise gently coalesce, but it is the random shafts of freeform jazz, courtesy of Greg Paulus on trumpet, and vocal snippets that transform this track. Things move towards impossible-to-dance-to and then, fairly rapidly, back again. It's an infectious eight-minutes precisely because of it's intelligence - there is just such a freshness in the noise.

'At The Seams' still feels like jazz music, but now mostly of the modern-piano variety. Soft electronic keys form a delicious background melody to harsh, intense analogue ones. Female vocals come from Banana Lazuli provides vocals, hidden and bruised, that dance in and out of melodies that seemingly extrapolate their course in front of our eyes. There is no beat here and more is one needed.

Final track 'Pending' is the most percussive here, layer upon layer of melody, white noise and drum beat building, turning and gradually falling out of range. A piano, played by Kate Simko, once again marks out the foreground melody but there is as much behind the scenes to enjoy. The non-linear progressions feel distinctly Eastern in origin and the jazz styling remain.

DRM PT 2 is clearly aimed at the high-brow and that will alienate some, but if it's an EP of jazz and electronic music that impresses if you give it the space. A fantastic introduction to Mervielle & Crosson's forthcoming album.

DRM PT2 is released through Visionquest on 17 September.

EP Review: Lunatic Fringe - Lee Curtis

Lunatic Fringe - Lee Curtis

Curtis' new release on Visionquest is due for release next week and on it he embraces his sleazy side, creating a selection of three tracks that at times push hard against the boundaries of taste and decency. But that's probably the point... Just be warned that if you don't like pussy you may want to give this one a miss.

A-side 'Body Twitch' is the source of a lot of male libido but when Curtis isn't threatening to make your lady-parts twitch or "working like we're making kids" the track itself is a sweaty, heavy work horse. The deep vocals are almost a distraction from the booming synthesiser that wobbles with acid and lustful ambition whilst a simple drum pattern caps it off. It feels like Curtis is going for crossover appeal here - the lyrics are slightly obvious but the track is carved out of pop gold, as influenced by hip-hop as house or techno.

'Freaks' is a bit less intense on the lyrics front and a little more conventional in its production style. There is still a vocal in place, the sound of deranged dance floor desperation, but it is less overtly confrontational. The music is less immediate - electronic sound waves rush forward whenever the song picks out the melodies that signify the break but there is still a dirty sounding beat-orientated sound to the whole track.

Final track 'Haters' is reminiscent of Curtis' brilliant 'Candy' from last year. The track layers big synthesisers to create giant swaths of ambient noise and gradually building distortion. It isn't as outwardly optimistic as 'Candy' however, infected by the darkly distorted worldview peddled by the rest of Lumatic Fringe to make a swirling whirlwind of mildly psychedelic techno.

Lunatic Fringe is released on 10 September through Visionquest

EP Review: Teen Collection - Hot Jam 96 by Various Artists

This latest release from VisionQuest features not just one artist but three. The whole release plays with VisionQuest's trademark tech influenced house sound and is geared up for summer but aside from that this represents a pretty varied release.

The EP opens with Lauren Lane who enlists Jaw from dOP to create 'Lazer Eyes', a soulful cut with a disco edge. It has the crisp treble and deep base of a more minimal track but there is pretty obvious crossover potential in the sun flecked guitars and sultry falsetto vocals.

Next up is 'Alice' from QBeck featuring Julia Govor and it is a very different track. Govor's feminine vocals are fragile and yet even more sultry whilst the track itself is dark tech-house. It is a well balanced track though, with a bridge of slowly collapsing rhythms and just the right amount of loose jazz in the shakes and live bongos to offset the heavy, clinical bass line the runs through the majority of the song.

The final track comes from Clarion, one half of Footprintz - whose 'Utopia' was VisionQuest's second release in March last year. Here he closes this EP out with 'All Over All Kinds' and it is closer to the 'Alice' than 'Lazer Eyes' in it's minimal tech sound. Once again it's a vocal track with Clarion providing his own tones for a dark and deep epic synth journey. It borrows liberally from Art Department's sound but feels a little less hamstrung by its own ambition - this feels enjoyable in ways that, for me at least, their music never really has.

All in all a nice set, though the tracks are sufficiently different that it is unlikely all three will rest easy in any single DJ's box.

Teen Collection - Hot Jam 96 is out through VisionQuest now.