Never Forget Us has been given the full Bvdub treatment, so all those house elements are still present in abundance but have been stretched, dilated and slowed to a souply, echoing crawl, in many cases far more so than on much of his other work. This is quite the departure for A Strangely Isolated Place as a label and Brock as an artist, but an absolute instabuy for fans of both.
Have a listen to the now six year old debut Earth House Hold album When Love Lived and you’ll probably struggle to identify it as the work of Brock van Wey right away. Tracks like “Need You (In A Trance)” or “We Live This” have some of the hallmarks of his work but are couched in a framework of deep house elements: lengthy mid-tempo instrumentals punctuated with looped vocal samples, housey piano/synth keys, dusty brushwork, claps, hats and snares, and melodic, floor-friendly sub-bass.
So what would A Strangely Isolated Place—a label dedicated to ambient music in its many and varied guises—be doing releasing an album under Brock van Wey’s rarely used house pseudonym of all things?
Well, for one, Never Forget Us has been given the full Bvdub treatment, so all those house elements are still present in abundance but have been stretched, dilated and slowed to a souply, echoing crawl, in many cases far more so than on much of his other work.
The technique is quite disorienting, as each layer is stretched to drastically different degrees, with varying degrees of success. One or two tracks inevitably sound like they’re being played at the wrong speed, the echoing and heartbreaking “Some Never Fall” or “Cry Your Eyes” for example.
Play Never Forget Us at 45 RPM (note to everyone: don’t do this!) and the house origins are even more apparent, some tracks becoming full on deep house. And yet the vocals, beats and melodies are pitched in such a way that it’s obvious you really shouldn’t be doing so. It’s quite ingenious.
For another, Never Forget Us has been arranged such that the housier elements open up gradually, the soft opening chimes and layers of vocal samples presented sans snares in a well of reverb on “Cry Your Eyes” an effective introduction to this earth house sound. “Only Suns Rise” is another exercise in hazy ambience, all gauzy, faded and foxed Ezekiel Honig-like pads and pulses. When “Time Can Wait” arrives, we’ve hit proper deep house territory, with urban textures and basslines accompanied by vocals smeared to the point that they instead become additional instruments.
Brock saves the best ’til last, beginning with “Spaces and Times,” a sort of two-part affair with the spaces marked by thunderous bass lines, peppery hi-hats, glittering keys and some of the most memorable looped and layered vocal samples on Never Forget Us whilst the times drift into more garagey territory.
The final track, “Walk On By” was originally the prototype for an album Brock had struggled to fully realise. Opening with the kind of eighties melodramatic style that has become quite popular today, it’s all hi-gloss, deeply saturated movie soundtrack keys, mournful piano solo and vocal yeahs. it moves on to soulful house almost undisturbed by the time-stretching so prominent elsewhere. It’s an intense piece that easily works on its own, but provides Never Forget Us with perfect, almost jubilant closure.
This is quite the departure for A Strangely Isolated Place as a label and Brock as an artist, but an absolute instabuy for fans of both.
Never Forget Us is available on A Strangely Isolated Place.
