Search results: Dimension

Review: Hyperdrive's label debut was a biggie that brought together old and new-school techno on one fizzing EP. The follow-up comes soon after and this time makes no bones about being a Rave Revival. Anthrophia's 'The Voice' kicks off with what is a hefty breakbeat cut with edgy rave stabs and slamming bass. Dimension 23 - 'Fascination' (Seb G mix) then takes a more stripped-back approach with turbocharged synths layered up over silky drums. Centuras brings plenty of bright, euphoric prog energy to the urgent drum funk of 'Jizz' and last of all Dimension 23's 'The Eagle' then kicks out more dusty old-school breaks with machine gun synth fire. A potent EP, make no mistake.

Notes: "That's my argument against the way punks become so cabaret. It's almost patronising [when bands play all their hits]. Oh, we'd better play 'How Much Longer' because people want that. To me, that's just patronising to the audience. I'd like to feel, and I always have done, that an Alternative TV audience wants us to experiment or to try new things out through that sense of exploration, or that childlike sense of wonder about making music.

That's why I've always wanted to retain that. I haven't always got it right, but that continuing journey to explore new areas of expression has got value, and that's why I think it's worth proceeding in that way. I'm doing that with the new band. I'm trying to instil that with them. This is what ATV is about."

"People have suggested to me that touring with The Pop Group must have been so arty and that we must have all been talking about Kafka at night. Bollocks were we! We were out of our minds most nights on fucking booze!" "I was really full of myself. I thought back then that I've got something to say and must be listened to. You only need to hear some of my stuff to know I was like that at the time, like on 'Alternatives', when I was having a go at people and telling them what to do and all that. Looking back, it's a bit embarrassing, but at the time it was sort of vital. Some people liked that and liked joining in.

So, 'Fellow Sufferer' was part of that. I did feel that because I was saying stuff and was playing music [away from] that punk template I was putting my reputation on the line. You know, [my being the] Sniffin' Glue editor and all that. I was going into what I thought was new ground and, let's face it, a lot of people didn't like it, and because of the way I was that spurred me on to make it even more extreme.

So, when we got on to the Vibing Up the Senile Man material, I decided quite early on that we didn't want to have a drummer and wanted to get back to making a space by getting rid of all the rhythm. I just thought if we get rid of all the rhythm it'll be more experimental [because] we wouldn't be tied to a strict beat. That's why there are no drums, really, on the Vibing Up the Senile Man songs. I played drums on the second Peel session, because we'd got rid of Chris Bennett, though. We'd chucked him out the band."

Mark Perry is a familiar name from the early punk scene in London due to his having published Sniffin' Glue fanzine between July 1976 and August 1977. As he became increasingly disillusioned with punk, however, he at least still remained driven by its impetus and started his group, Alternative TV. With their first release, 'Love Lies Limp', issued as a 7" flexi single with Sniffin' Glue 12, itself the final edition of the fanzine, it was clear that Alternative TV were not going to readily sit comfortably alongside the countless hordes of identikit punk groups forming around the same time.

Sharper yet wrought with frustration, Mark Perry took the group through a more personal space that pre-empted what a short while later became known as post-punk. Whilst sometimes charged with the same energy and anger, the music was more opened out and embraced all manner of different and often disparate areas, from reggae to industrial, improvisation and even brazen pop. Offset by subject matter that likewise often smashed down those borders of expectation, Mark always took his music wherever he felt it should go.

Not given to compromise or always taking the easiest route, even when sometimes handed to him, his approach to songwriting or making records has rarely strayed from an artistic vision which sets him apart from his contemporaries. Lost in Room focusses on the first four years of his musical path, beginning with 'Love Lies Limp' and ending as the first version of the group collapsed soon after 1981's Strange Kicks album and Mark's joining The Reflections.

Along the way are tours with Chelsea, Here & Now and The Pop Group, a huge love of Frank Zappa, a meeting of minds with the late Genesis P-Orridge, the running of Step-Forward Records and working for Miles Copeland's Faulty Products network of labels, plenty of anecdotes about the world he was embroiled in, and the story behind the records themselves.

Broken into two main parts, one concerning the historical development of Alternative TV and Mark's occasional releases outside the group, and the other dedicated to the ideas that informed many of the songs themselves, this book is centred around a conversational approach to a series of weekly interviews conducted via Zoom with Mark between late 2021 and summer 2022.

Deliberately retaining the organic nature of the conversations, replete with tangents that sometimes refer to later work or creep elsewhere completely, Lost in Room is the first book to explore the early years of Mark Perry's having become one of the most interesting and honest voices to have arrived from the cultural shift of the late 1970s.

Review: Jamaica Soul Shake Vol 1 is one of the many seminal compilations put together by Soul Jazz. It first arrived in 2006 and provided, as you would expect, a perfect overview of the goddamn funky Sound Dimension. They were one of the many crucial in-house bands that worked at Clement 'Coxsone' Dodd's pioneering and influential Studio One. The original has been impossible to find since forever so do not sleep on this new, one-off limited edition pressing on silver coloured double vinyl. The sea re all rocksteady rhythms and delicious dubs that will keep you moving and grooving for days.

Review: Here's a killer reissue from the Soul Jazz archives which is finally getting a repress. It's hardly surprising when the reissue becomes as sought after as the holy grail original jam from 1970, a sublime instrumental anthem of soulful, skanking perfection with Cedric Im Brooks flexing his sax in glorious style over a beautifully rough n' ready rhythm. It was shortly after this recording was laid down Brooks went on to form The Mystic Revelation of Rastafari with Count Ossie, which tells you all you need to know about the heritage we're dealing with here.

Review: Following acclaimed releases on Dekmantel, Aus Music and Ninja Tune, Jack Hamill aka Space Dimension Controller is back this week with a fantastic new release of London's Hypercolour. The Cro2ma EP is a three-tracker featuring Detroit elements and bleepy bass that you've come to know and love from the Irish producer. From the contemplative electro of the title track, to the minimal hi-tech funk of 'IG00158' and the deep, acid-tinged techno of 'Highborne' which closes it out on an emotive tip - it's altogether highly accessible yet intricate in design.

Review: Charles Webster's 2020 album Decision Time - the veteran East Midlander's first full-lengthi 19 years - was predictably good, but more downtempo and immersive than dancefloor-ready. This EP of remixes from the album is therefore long overdue. The EP-opening Dazzle Drums remix of 'This Is Real' is a luscious slab of jazz and bossa-tinged deep house soul perfection, while Jazuelle's 'Retro Rhapsody' version of 'Music' effortlessly joins the dots between laidback breakbeat, street soul and warming deep house sonics. Over on the flip, Mark E reimagines 'The Spell' as an analogue-rich chunk of gently dreamy deep house hypnotism, while 'Luciano' channels the spirit of Matthew Herbert's greatest micro-house productions on an undulating, soul-enriching full vocal take on 'Music'. Grown-up fare that sounds as good at home as it does in the club.

Review: Anyone with at least a rudimentary knowledge of the history of UK dance music, and deep house in particular, will tell you that this album is a big deal. It's the first full-length in 19 years from Charles Webster, a producer whose atmospheric, smoky take on deep house and downtempo grooves has always been a cut above his UK contemporaries. The big question is this: is it any good? Predictably, it most certainly is. Featuring a wealth of guest vocalists (Sia, Shara Nelson and Terra Deva included), Decision Time sees Webster effortlessly blur the boundaries between smoky soul, trip-hop, jazz, future R&B, broken beat and house so deep it may take you a while to resurface. In a word: brilliant.

Review: Originally formed in 1977 (the year punk supposedly died), the Mark Perry-led collective known as Alternative TV are often cited as one of, if not, the first act to marry reggae rhythms to punk rock motifs. Refusing to rest on these laurels for long, however, the group would go on to utterly defy easy categorisations over the ensuing decades, with their 1979 second album Vibing Up the Senile Man (Part One) eschewing much of the anthemic mayhem of their debut The Image Has Cracked, in favour of a more experimental free-jazz form. This early anecdotal evidence is vital when attempting to unpack their new eleventh LP Direct Action. Following on from 2015's Opposing Forces, and serving as their first project of new material in almost a decade, this latest collection opts to be their most challenging, impenetrable and unwelcoming yet. Utilising tape loops, isolated guitar passages, minimal vocals and an overall industrial-leaning quality, the fact that the group so many decades ago had their first rehearsals at Throbbing Gristle's Industrial Records studio seems like no great revelation in retrospect. Unconcerned with listener expectation or radioplay, Direct Action demands animated response yet refuses to offer any helping hand down its path of caustic, alien sonics.

Review: When it comes to creating musical soundtracks to contemporary urban decay, Gary Mundy has more experience than most. He's been releasing music as Kleistwahr since 1983 (though he did give the project a break between 1987 and 2009) and is a genuine master of creating heady, post-industrial soundscapes. 'Common Values', his 14th Kleistwahr album, is another masterclass in texture, mood and slowly shifting melody. There are moments of bittersweet, melancholic brilliance (see the immersive, reverb-laden ambience of 'Heaven Maybe Never') and pulsing, creeping minimalism (the brilliant, bleak and mournful 'Towards New Land'), but also fuzzy, guitar-laden soundscapes ('In a Blood Covered Land', 'All of Death To Lie' and the squally 'Common Values') and enveloping audio worlds subtly influenced by shoegaze ('Time To Realise').

Review: We're not quite sure how to "navigate" an ashtray in and of itself, but this new album by Ashtray Navigations might hint at true executions of the art. A long-running experimental rock project led by Leeds' Phil Todd, Ashtray Navigations have been active since 1991, releasing dozens of albums and EPs on various labels and formats, often in limited editions. Their music is eclectic and unpredictable, spanning psychedelic rock, drone, noise, ambient, folk, and electronica. One From Then Another compactly sums up Todd's diverse and adventurous approach to sound creation in double-sided single form, with 'Drink The Moment/Thin Fox Legs' coming as a dubious space jam for flute, bass and bloop, and 'Return Of The Sun Of DR Artur' bringing up a beatless, Afrofuturist rear.