DJ Alex Corton – Vinyl Reviews

Good Looking Records

Intense Presents – Logical Progression Level 3

1998

Moving along with Logical Progression Level 2,

we now get to a couple of artists who excel in the music game. 

    For our first track today, on Record 2: Side 1, we have the Swedish superhuman songwriter, Sebastian Ahrenberg. Seba. 

   At this time in his career he had already established his presence on Looking Good Records with Lo Tek in 1996 having worked his way with several projects through the Swedish based Svek label, and then beginning his solo career in 1997. This was also the time he set up a night in Stockholm called Secret Operations to promote the sounds he was immersed in, eventually becoming the name of his well established record label. 

   Now, I am sticking my neck out here, but I think that the record label on this release may be the first time that the Secret Operations logo appears? Seba’s label did not begin until 2002 and before that, there is a CD (Various artists – Case One from 1999) that had the logo on it with several great tunes including tracks from Alaska, Future Engineers, Lotek and Seba under his Forme guise, that I’ll be reviewing when we reach Secret Operations. So, if anyone has an image of this SecOps image on a label or sleeve earlier than this one from 1998, let us know and I’ll place it in. For now I believe this may be the first sighting of the Secret Operations logo. I wonder if at this time, Bukem had the idea to give Seba his own offshoot from Good Looking back then, or it was just a chance to promote the artists own identity? Seba, you may be the best to ask. 

    ‘Remedy’ has every atom of that Seba seduction within it. As the ancient gods of Odin and Thor cup their ears toward the Northern territories, closing their eyes and feeling the waves of this irresistible piece of music, they too must succumb to the pure form and function of the echoes that drift toward them. Seba unleashes sounds of pristinely edited Apache breaks, electro bass, pitch bending pads of devine luxury along with those unmistakable sound effects which extract the wilderness and mysterious stories from the Lyktgubben flickers on the horizon. Seba was such a highly flammable commodity with his output in 1998, his work ignited life in a whole new way for so many of us. I, for one, will never forget these early roots, as he continues to this day, to be one of the ultimate purveyors, andone of the most creative legends of our scene. A big big shout as always to Seba! 

    For Record 2: Side 2, we have the return of Blu Mar Ten, with the track ‘She Moves Through’. The record label here has the same grid image that you can find on their Looking Good Records release, ‘Global Access’ / ‘Myriad’ from 1998 which was their fifth release (fourth under the Good Looking family of labels). The design lifted the grid away from the world underlay and maybe it was the idea that they would be handed a sub label at the time? 

A big shout as always to Chris Marigold and Leo Wyndham who may have more background on this. I hope that we hear more work from the BMTM stable soon. 

    The track ‘She Moves Through’ enters an electric force field of circuit boards, sparking pulsations and flickering sources which generate the canvas for the wondrous pads and that rolling break. The Blu Mar Ten boys were firing on all cylinders around this time and having this exclusive number on the Level 3 LP is a fucking little gold mine of music. The tune builds and flows, nurturing the composition into the many degrees of one’s distant flecks of thoughts and feelings. The breakdown turns off the switch momentarily while things stir up the tides that wash in the purest infused liquids and retreat with the worries and woes. A heavenly dose of the BMT talents and decadent wonders of their creativity. Absolute heaven. 

   That concludes the second plate on this LP. We return to end with the third and final plate on Logical Progression Level 3, on Monday. 

  Have a wonderful weekend and don’t forget that my blog is here with all the Good Looking Records reviews from my shelf, so far. I hope you get to gander through the ones I’ve posted so far.