DJ Alex Corton – Vinyl Reviews

Good Looking Records

L.T.J. Bukem – Music (Happy Raw) / Enchanted

1993

As we enter this full write up (of many full weeks), of Bukem’s Good Looking Records, it’s the second solo on the label from its captain, Danny Williamson. I hope you all had a good weekend and the tunes flowed like a burst water main. 

    Having reviewed those first three plates on GLR last week, we now venture into a release that changed the way I understood things. I’m going to let you know that when I first heard ‘Music’ by Bukem, I passed on it. I can still remember Marvellous Cain playing it me in Sight Sound Motion in Basingstoke and me shaking my head and saying “no”. Maybe I was expecting more variance? More hands in the air? I had him skip through it too quickly too I think. Whatever it was, I left without it and felt that I just hadn’t connected with it. I was 18 years of age and if I’m going to be honest, I just wasn’t ready yet. Time ticked on and slowly appearing through the cloud of naivety and jammed door of understanding, I took the time to go back to the store and say “ok, let me just hear that Good Looking tune all the way through”. For me, that changed my whole appreciation and respect for ‘Music’. I did wonder how it would drop in a set, being so different from anything else in my collection at the time, but also knew that it would be a track that took you somewhere you’d never been. I still really wasn’t ready for just how ahead of its time this tune was.

   Side A bell rings its way into play with easy horn infused synths and the stillness becomes chilled with the calls of the wilderness. The break comes in with that deep and mind controlling bass ‘bom bom bam bam’ which maintains the movement of the tracks on throughout. The bass switches to a a high-high, low-low, a bit further along which I love about this track. A simple change but so fucking slick. The pads prize open the portal to another dreamworld. The vocal wail “ohh oh a ho”. Then it’s back to just those beats and the additional layer of high hat detail. The build to the major breakdown is the cherry on the icing of this cake. Imagine that you’ve already become mind numbed to all outside stresses and strains and then this happens. The podium positions move up to the top level “I feel it”…enter the moment you’ll want to remain for the rest of your life. This track gave us the key into Bukem’s plans for the future. A moment of history that we now know, was pivotal in how the rave scene could span a widening spectrum of music and emotions. 

   ‘Enchanted’ on Side B is a track that deserves just as much credit as the A side for me. It presses down on the accelerator a tad more with its rolling freight train of breaks and imputing some of those magical Bukem chords in, while the little sound effects of blips, whales, rattles and then the “eyeee”. The bass has more of a constant which becomes one of the riffs in a way. ‘Enchanted’ has everything you expect from Bukem in here. Seductive, flowing, addictive and exploratory within the realms of the known and unknown. The synth raises the suspense around 3/4 in and arouses the senses beyond the dimensions of space. Bukem wasn’t going to have another solo release out until ‘Horizons’ after this (well, ‘Atmospherical Jubilancy’ was the one we should mention, although that’s another story). 

   This 12” carries the eternal vapors of all things good about this label. The strength of these early seeds allowed Good Looking Records, to grow into a Giant Redwood of the music we love. Danny was making it happen and our drum and bass world would be a very different world without it, going as far to say, would it have pulled us through? The need for this style and especially for those of us who are kicking back a bit more these days, allows us to revisit these tracks from the armchair, with huge pride and volumes of memories. Plus, if we do get out on a dancefloor in our slippers, dosed up on pain killers, we can still appreciated just how incredible the music on this label will always be. Timeless, connected, paradise.