Depth sits alongside shallow self-interested surface. Good music runs parallel with, well, less good music. I guess the best advice is suck it and see, though be careful of the contents.
Edinburgh doesn’t have the musical clout of its grubbier neighbor Glasgow. Whilst I lived in Scotland’s largest city I never once made the short journey to the capital for music reasons, mainly because all was catered for in Glasgee. But there are some working away on electronics amidst the cobbled streets and polished limestone.
Hobbes Music opened its doors two years ago. Born from Trouble, a club night, the label has a diverse range of vinyl under its belt. At the heart of the project is the eponymous Dj Hobbes, aka Andrew Richardson. The cornerstone of this outing is the Trouble Remixes project. Over four slabs of wax, to date, an admirable array of artists from a gamut of genres has been collected. Dub, techno, house, afrobeat, wave and more have been tackled.
The source material is a veritable buffet. Homegrown talent, like Auntie Flo, is taken on and re-worked. But lesser knowns, even unknowns, are source material ready for the makeover treatment. Names such as JD Twitch, Neil Landstrumm and Fudge Fingas jump off inner labels as audio transformers, re-touching originals.
The fourth, and most recent, in the Trouble Remixes series, Autumn Blues, sees a new quartet gathered to take on the past. The latest installment opens with Hobbes and his brother in arms, Leonidas, revamping Plum. “Only Human” is a strange hybrid. Imagine Bjork and amp up the electroclash and you’re somewhere close. Dimitri Veimar’s rework of Pumajaw comes from a similar place, saccharine samples with overly sugared synths. This is something found across the label’s catalogue, there is an enormous gulf. The Edinburgh imprint caters for the back bar CD DJ, the vapid hipster and the would-be connoisseur, and Autumn Blues is proof of this. The flip is quality through and through. Remix master Mick Wills delivers a Wave tinted slammer, one energized with a slow burning build. Fellow Scot Marco Bernardi brings down the curtain on this strange beast. The Glaswegian serves up a tight piece of rumbling electro. Staccato stabs are punctured by crisp beats for heady, yet functional, finale.
Hobbes Music seems to reflect the city of its origin. Edinburgh never really had a focal point for electronics, it seemed to lack that essential something or hadn’t found it yet. Like that historic town, Hobbes has many merits. There are some cracking tracks, but there are some less palatable air-headed Ableton moments. Disco edits fitted with little more than a new boa rub shoulders with clever computer art. Depth sits alongside shallow self-interested surface. Good music runs parallel with, well, less good music. I guess the best advice is suck it and see, though be careful of the contents.
