A spread of styles mixed, dipped and re-dipped. And this magpie approach is plain to hear across the LP. Constants are few. Few, but not totally absent. Beats are often crumpled, distorted and cracked. Rhythms are played with, stretched and strained.
I still remember the most expensive 12” I ever bought. Back as a fledgling electronic music nut I’d trawl the web from the confines of my rural Irish home. Second hand sites. Record stores, many of which have now shut down. There was no discogs marketplace, but there was eBay.
And it was eBay where the purchase was made. Jega, Card Hore, £28 Sterling. The EP is now worth considerably less, but it’s still a cracking record from the golden days of Skam.
In recent years the Mancunian label has been a lot quieter. Releases have been few and far between with the quality having dropped somewhat. But, lest ye forget, Skam can always deliver the goods; and it certainly has.
A collection of fifteen works of unreleased material from two decades ago make up 1995. Dylan J. Nathan, a Planet Mu veteran, has always been a bit of a maverick. No central path has been trod. Drum and bass. Electronica. Techno. Glitch. Electro. A spread of styles mixed, dipped and re-dipped. And this magpie approach is plain to hear across the LP. Constants are few. Few, but not totally absent. Beats are often crumpled, distorted and cracked. Rhythms are played with, stretched and strained. 90s percussion, reminiscent to Mu-Ziq, burns in the dirtied and decrepit “UNIVAC” with its muddied acid lines and creeping chords. And the album does feel of its time, but what a time electronic music it was. Nothing feels outdated. The willingness to experiment, to tease the norms and push is evident throughout the LP. Bars and melodies bend in the inviting warmth of “Shockwave Rider.” Frostier respites breeze through but don’t last long, the icy classical tones of “FZ Requiem” being thaws by the autumnal “Knight Lore.” And this is what you get across 1995, range. Nathan draws you in with one style before dropping another into this wonderful mix.
There is the problem of reviewing these albums of “unreleased” material that nostalgia will kick in, that the rose tinted goggles will descend and gushing will take over. I can’t guarantee there isn’t a smidgen of this in here, but that doesn’t take away from 1995 one iota. A master of the day proving that time can’t dull his quality. Too gushy?
1995 is available is available on Skam.
