Vacillating between house and bass music and occasionally blending the two. Rinse: 16 checks the boxes any self-respecting mix should – unflagging energy, varied track selection…
[Release page] Ben UFO is like many a good music critic: knows quality when he hears it, but for whatever reason doesn’t make the stuff himself. The difference here is that piqued artistes might call a critic a hindrance to the creative process (“I’d like to see YOU try to make music, bub”), while Ben UFO will never get that kind of flak. He’s not a musician, no, but he happens to run Hessle Audio, a fairly forward-looking label responsible for some of Untold and Pangaea’s best singles (“I Can’t Stop This Feeling / Anaconda” and “You & I / Router”). He’s one hell of a DJ, too. Trust me – I was lucky enough to go to Fabric one night Hessle had a room to themselves, and even though he started at 3:30am, his performance was the best of the night. And this was a showcase, remember. Pangaea, Ramadanman, Peverelist, and other heavyweight ‘steppers all took their turns, but in retrospect they were just the openers.
So: Rinse: 16. It’s a nice mix, vacillating between house and bass music and occasionally blending the two. Some of it is fairly recent (Pangaea’s “Hex” and Shackleton’s “Deadman”), but surprisingly, most of it isn’t as up-to-the-moment as you’d expect. As a label head, I’m sure Ben has access to gobs of unreleased treasures, and usually sets from people in that line that have long, intimidating tracklists full of dubplate’s and forthcoming’s. From what I understand, too, Ben’s sets are usually zoomed in on one style, which makes Rinse: 16 even more incongruous.
Not that I’m complaining.
Rinse: 16 checks the boxes any self-respecting mix should – unflagging energy, varied track selection, all that. As a bigger fan of bass music than house, for me it really gets going at Jam City’s “Arpjam VIP” – the preceding 25 minutes keeps its four to the floor, and only afterwards does Ben really start to show his range and dexterity. From “Arpjam” onward, Ben maintains a precarious energy, flirting with both of his chosen genres but never committing to either for too long, a spellbinding display of restraint that would come off as vagary with anyone less skilled. And did I mention the transitions? Brilliant, all of them. Not only is Ben an adept selector, but it’s also astounding how well some of his selections trigger their neighbors, like pieces of a Rube Goldberg machine. For instance: The wind-down at the end of Kode 9’s “Ice” into the deep drop of “Silo Pass.” Or: How the chopped MC of “Hex” calls to mind a real-world sound waking you from the dream of “Sweet Love.” Or: the vocal sample that spans “Dunkel Jam” and “Lady Science (Tek Mix), pitch-shifted in the latter, a funhouse mirror reflection…
Or:
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You get the point. As if the previous 26 transitions weren’t enough, though, Rinse: 16’s real genius is its parting blow. Now, I never considered Andrew Coltrane’s (“The least jazzy one”) talent in any way commensurate with his output, but the inclusion of “Systems of Chaos” here throws Coltrane’s work into stunning relief. The piece was originally a double sided LP, meaning it’s actually a lot longer than 54 seconds. But I doubt listening to one side of that record (much less flipping it over) could have achieved the same effect – arguably some sort of cryptic devastation – that Ben UFO does just by getting the context right. Coming near the end of a 70-minute set, “Systems of Chaos” and the How To Dress Well production it bleeds into are more perfect closers than any house or bass workout would have been. Coltrane’s work is every bit as shocking as it was intended to be, and “Escape Before The Rain” (which also benefits from expert contextualization) suggests walking home alone from a great night at a club, ears still ringing, watching the sky and happily anticipating a warm bed.
What I mean is, yeah, you may have heard Coltrane and HTDW before, but not like this. On paper their addition is easily mistaken for a tacked-on grab at a wider market, but really it’s artless and nothing more than an incredibly smart way to end a mix. It makes the preceding hour seem even more worthwhile, if only for the eventual payoff, like watching The Usual Suspects a second time. Okay, so maybe not that good, but still, credit is due to Mr. UFO not only for that ending but also for bridging this superb collection of tracks together so skillfully that listening to the transitions bears its own rewards. Which is almost as hard as making a comedy record worth revisiting. Well played.
Rinse 16 is available on Rinse. [Purchase at Bleep.com]
