DJ Alex Corton – Vinyl Reviews

Good Looking Records

Blame – Between Worlds EP

1998

We move one place along the record shelf and across this wall of yellow spine EP’s to the one blue spine in the display. It’s really odd that it was the only one printed up like that. I suppose it’s easy to look for it? The release also has another ‘Limited Edition Of 5000’

Sticker on the front sleeve.  This one is No. 1411. I do not doubt that it was readily available though. Even back then, the psychology of marketing attempted to lure us vinyl addicts into buying music. 

   Today, we re-enter the abstract and multi dimensional world of Conrad Blame. Blame had already planted his sound in the ground of Good Looking with his two ‘97 singles ‘Visions Of Mars’ & ‘360° Clic’ and then also being handed the 720 label, the same year, through Good Looking. He had some murmurings bubbling with ‘Cuban Lynx’ / ‘Solitude’.  You even have the 720 logo revesed on the back cover of the sleeve (which i only recently discovered.) Blame had also been dabbling with several downtempo pieces on Cookin’ & (much like Bukem), the Earth compilations. For me though, this EP extended a freshly assembled, high tech robotic arm of ideas, from out of the Good Looking machine. Inside this arm, were the microchips and memory banks of a distant future. One where the connections between reality and the concept of a future world, became solidified in Blame’s quest to stretch the boundaries and imagination in ways we had not heard. This was really the first sign of Blame’s vision and the establishing of his Mission Control, in taking this bold and ambitious next-step into his music, for the next few years. 

   Blame’s sound hit a new high with this EP. For me, it turned the atmospheric scene upside down and allowed the distances and expansion of the sounds to rain down on the ravers and listeners, fermenting the emotions in ways where much of the music was freeing you up into the galaxies. Blame’s sound however, was showing you where you had landed on the new, distant planets and worlds beyond our own. The traveling had been done and it was time to look around at your future. 

   As with the first EP, we have another first class engineer working on the music with the main artist. I know Conrad has mentioned before how much of a perfectionist, Simon Donohue was when it came to making music. So much so, it became a major reason why he felt he couldn’t continue to feel like he was killing himself in getting everything perfect. 

Simon ‘Odyssey’ became such a big part of helping sculpt Blames ideas into reality and having someone as meticulous and self critical must have been a double edged sword at times. When it worked, it hit the heavens, but getting it there, I’m sure, proved stressful at times. 

   ‘Altered Course’ is the first track on this EP from the outer galactic world of Blame. Stepping across the vast threshold between the Earth and the unknown territory of a new world, we unlock the pneumatic clips from our visors and decompress into a landscape of whisked up winds and gaping canyons, plummeting their stab wounds into the core of the planet. An android infected, skin based break and the live bass guitar, scurry over the surface of the dunes which open up into those calls through the chimes of redirection and warnings. Blame was in the new world and finding one of many places with this track, to plant his flag, signaling this discovery of a taste of the future. Pure class! 

   For track B on the flip side, we have ‘Mechanism’. We played Mechanism 02 on ‘Into The Void’ LP which was the follow up to this fucking killer piece of music. The ‘Overhead Projections’ elements continue to spark tales of the unplugged circuits, through portals of mystic pulls. When those deep, rich pads soar to start things off they just rewire your mind they’re so ludicrously good. It’s only once they have you hooked, that the beats smash through the cloak like a raging bull of unimaginable fury. The pattern that’s laid down and the ultra, pin point sci-fi elements in this tune are just so fucking good, you start to rethink how the hell this music was even conceived. 

   One day we may catch a glimpse of the light that burns on this star of music. Until then, it’s immersing moments in the sounds of Blame, and also a shit load of respects to Simon Odyssey too. You have here two musicians that will remain somewhere out there on their mission, with the rest of us getting their distant signals and attempting to understand the way this music can take us there. For now, the limit remains as is. For Blame, it’s already set up, and way beyond our comprehension. What we do know is it has a unique place in our lives. Big respects Blame! 

   The next two tracks from this EP will be reviewed next week. Until then, I hope you have a good weekend!