DJ Alex Corton – Vinyl Reviews

Good Looking Records

Nookie / Pariah / Makoto & Akira / Intense – Catch 22 / Confessions / Mind Vision / Black Ice 

2002

 A new week of reviews brings us another selection of artists for this the 8th double 12” release on my shelf, from the Good Looking Records stable. We have some pretty heavy hitters on this one. 

   I hope everyone’s weekend was a good one? 

   For the artwork on this release, we have Gareth Jones back on duty, with what looks like the rear tail light of a Lotus Elan? Do you remember the car and whoever it was that owned it, Gareth? I take it, it was Black Ice on this release that connected that winter hazard to the car and it hopefully wasn’t the recipient of a patch of it? 

From Gareth: “Ha, I’d forgotten this one completely. And looking back, it feels fairly random. We loved the shapes and tones, set against that blue sky. As far as I remember, this was the back light of Danny’s (LTJ) car, which I thought was a BMW at the time. Could be wrong. Love that I didn’t even photoshop the upper right section out. Guess that was deliberate… ;)”

   We actually have five artists on this release, beginning with the musical legend that is Gavin Cheung, AKA Nookie. ‘Catch 22’ frays the strings of the cosmos and delivers one of those special Nookie tunes which has that level of sophistication, renowned throughout his work. The soft bass, pulsing pads, those little yelps, and how about the flute in here? The sounds of GLR continued to deliver and when you have artists like Gavin on any label, the results will always stretch further than expectation. 

    If the A Side hasn’t hit you enough, then to add more flavor we have the amazing Pariah on Side AA. Once the curtains of the mellow, drifting intro draw back, we have that trajectory of Pariah’s sound, the easy beats, very subtle bass and the several sounds in here which bind this track together so very beautifully. This is one of my favorites of Pariah mainly due to the way that it’s the sounds you’d usually expect in the back ground of a tune, that step to the forefront and turn a fragmented and shattered riff into the full power of the production. 

Sometimes a tune just reaches you in a way that triggers a different feeling, and this is one of them. One of the very best in 2002.