DJ Alex Corton – Good Looking Records

Good Looking Records

Tayla / Tidal – Turn It Around / Impressions 

2009

We reach our next installment on the legendary, Good Looking Records with a real belter of a plate. It’s also a very welcome return to the label for one of the original dons of the label. Having released GLR 002 way back in the early days of the label, and then teamed up with Rupert Parkes for the breathtaking ‘Bringing Me Down’ & ‘Soul Searching’ not forgetting his Nexus label productions and signings through the GLR network, Russell Tayla was back with a bite. 

    He is joined on the plate, by Wayne Hay who is Tidal. This is his debut on Good Looking. We reviewed a couple of years back, a piece of his work on Criterion Records, which kicked off that label with ‘The Box’. His notoriety had, by then, become well established as it was 4 years after today’s release. Wayne certainly deserved to share a 12” plate with Tayla right here.

   This is the promo release, as you can see it has the Yellow box with ‘Promo Copy Not For Resale’ on the A Side and the “P” at the end of the catalogue number. 

    Side A begins the music for today’s review (obviously), with ‘Turn It Around’ by Tayla. It’s a galloping beat workout and puffing bass to get this one rolling. Tayla takes this manic horror movie strings section and shackles you in for a fierce shuttle along the rails of the ghost train, pelting you with a wall of thunderous bass and relentless meteor shower of music. Even at the breakdown, you barely have time to cry out for help as the signal lever falls forward, and the tracks click you onto the next corkscrew of high energy drums and nail biting suspense. It’s a tune that rattles the bars, pounds the blood and leaves you drenched in full on musical bliss. One to swan dive off the board and into the pool of GLR rollers. Russell is back out DJing and I love the clip of one of his forthcoming tunes, that he played out at Sun & Bass 2025. Eyes and ears out for that one. Big props as always Russell! 

    Tidal moves the base of the velvet seat down from its upright position in this theater of the label, and lets you recline with a soft and delicate piano riff intro that then loops and drifts out to the luscious and rich beats. The snapping snare and a creamy bass poach the forefront as the waves of pads garnish the air with reservoirs of soul and ambience. ‘Impressions’ harks back to the true art of liquid and lets the ladle of ideas spill out and feed the outstretched minds with incubated musical poetry. A sweet piece of music here. 

   Tomorrow we dive into our next Good Looking Records release. Whatever your take on the way things were developing, it is, at the end of the day, all a matter of opinion. 

My blog is here (as you’re reading it), so if you feel like rolling back the years, each Good Looking track so far has been covered. I hope you enjoy them!