DJ Alex Corton – Vinyl Reviews

Good Looking Records

LTJ Bukem – Mystical Realms EP

1998

For the next few weeks we are going to be working through the Good Looking Records EPs that spanned from 1998 up until 2004. During the six years of these double vinyl releases, there featured 11 artists, providing a total of 19.5 releases (nothing familiar To Good Looking fans at all with that decimal number is there? Uh hum…). We have every single one of them to enjoy and plenty of  words and pictures to load up into your lives. 

   Now, you may wonder what on earth the “.5” bit is? Well, the last EP was in the Test Press process when the Good Looking label took a dip out of operations and thus, the last EP only managed one disc, before reaching the main release stage. It was around the same time as GLR 066 and LGR 052 that this took place. 

    For the posts on these EP’s, I was going to try and write up all four tunes, per post. However I am going to cover each EP over two successive days, which means we’ll review two tracks per day instead. Some of these write ups require a little more substance, usually based on the epic proportions of the music. It also gives me a chance to focus on the quality of the connections between the music and the words, which a lot of this music deserves.  Without further ado, let’s get this section of the label, rolling.

    LTJ Bukem had been reasonably quiet on the drum and bass, production front following Horizons (or Horizions as first press labels stated), on Looking Good Records (LGR 001). The gap between 1995 and today’s release some three years later, had been focused mainly on the many down tempo pieces he had been building for the Earth compilations within Volumes 1-3. While his absence may have been missed by many, the gap for Danny to revisit some different styles, paid dividends in the end, as his return to his own label, was a godsend. Today’s EP contains the perfect springboard into the production quality and ideas that Bukem was now focused on. It also began this incredible series of EPs. Interesting that it’s the only catalogue number, without the “V” for the vinyl. Maybe it was not originally intended to be a series? I do know it could buy the CD of this EP. 

  Of the four tracks on the EP, one of them we have already reviewed as it eventually made its way onto LTJ Bukem’s LP of the same name, ‘Journey Inwards’. What is interesting is that none of the other tracks made it onto the LP. For this reason, I feel that this EP is a very special release, as it not only kept these other tracks exclusive to this release, we also have a vocal version featuring MC Conrad, which personally makes this a collectors item in its own right, for any die hard, Good Looking Records fan. 

   The design work on this release was from the Propeller Studios who worked on a few of the GLR and LGR sleeves between 1998 and 1999. We also have one of the lost souls of our scene on the engineering duties for this EP. A Mr. Olly ‘Artemis’ Lomax. This must have been just before Simon Vispi from Intense, took over the engineering for Bukem. You have to admire how fucking exquisite the music sounds on here, and the way that both Olly and Simon could bring out the best with the mixing desk. This release showed a Limited Edition of 5000, which didn’t really make it that limited, however this is No. 3688.

   Track A is the superb ‘Twilight Voyage’ which holds a real true flavor of the guy behind engineering this, Artemis. Those pads kicking off the track have been taken straight out his toolbox. The slight change in key welcomes in the beautifully polished and well oiled beats, leading up to a fine, soft bass line, designed to glue the composition together with true elegance. Bukem was redirecting his focus into the change of the music, but keeping the traits of that metronomic and sedate progression which funnels every synopsis of tranquility into the music. I think it’s really important to realize here, how his downtempo work had carried the ideas into this era of his drum and bass work. You had a selection of material on Earth which shifted the musical plates which Bukem then harnessed into the tracks on here and the Journey Inwards LP, which also incorporated the Suspended Space EP (up soon). The overall package of deep, floating and brain nourishing music, along with the most crystal clear production, made for a most welcome and exciting return to the studio from the concrete back bone of the Good Looking Records stable. LTJ Bukem. 

   Track B is a real belter of a track which can be heard as the final track on the very first Progression Sessions. While we have the instrumental of ‘Orchestral Jam’ for you here, you also have the Vocal version, on Side C (reviewed tomorrow). This track has so much raw and pulsating rhythm dessert that you’ll just keep ingesting it until the very last second. Every fibre of your being gets into that beat and as the orchestral sections glide their resin waxed bows nimbly and gracefully over the stings, the music gyrates, dips and rises and makes your whole soul come alive. For me, this signified that Bukem was hitting his return in such a refined and personal way, that his compass needle had found its true North. Listening to the work involved with this track, the hint of that Shogun style, rapid beat firing up the drum work (bass b-bass drum), the brooding undercurrents of the bass line and then with Bukem’s deft ear for the strings and pads, proving his unique talents and classical background with the piano, melt together for this extremely treasured musical theatre.