DJ Alex Corton – Good Looking Records

Good Looking Records

Big Bud – Mr Nice EP

1998

Our next record from Big Bud has two more tracks on this ‘Mr Nice EP’, from one of the pace makers of the atmospheric drum and bass artists. This was a time where you’d have many producers making tunes, but there were those you’d have to consider listening too before you confirmed buying, and then there were some you’d already know, would be on your shelf before you could say “antidisestablishmentariani…” see? It’s on your shelf already! 

   It was in an abundance of top drawer music that the material Big Bud was pushing out showed it was nothing but the cream of the crop. He had formed the clarity, the engineering and the palette of full spectrum varieties, in a way only artists like Blame, Olly Artemis and Makoto were making on a consistent basis, on the GLR label. Needless to say, we have the following, classy couple of tracks to tantalize and treat the taste buds..or ear buds…it’s all Big Bud either way. 

   ‘Mr. Nice’ you’ll find on the excellent CD album of Late Night Blues, but it is not on the vinyl LP, so it’s good having this track on here, to relieve the anxiety of all that mess. Here on Side C, is the deluge, the torrent and the wave of Big Bud excelling in every corner of the outer limits of mind expanding music. The format of his tunes led you down passages, across ravines, under hillsides and over the majestic mountain tops, all the in space of time of his tracks. This one is an epic, 11+ minutes of pore sucking ecstasy. Sharp beat productions, sublime bass key changes, romantic pads and quaint jazz notes, swimming gracefully in the pool of visionary ideas and a headquarters for daydreaming bliss. When the music feels like it’s only 5 minutes long and it’s 11, then something tells you it’s more than an art form. It’s (in Big Bud terms), a way of life. 

    Side D is the track ‘Buds’. Here is the reason why I admire this guys work so much. In among the regular, expected music that one finds from the swarms of musicians that flutter and frolic around, its tracks like this that reel in the big catches and hold aloft that extra polished pedestal of achievement. The way this stirs in the dub essence, the mellow trip-hop spices and the vitamin injected vessel of ideas, is pretty fucking unreal. We have a switch for the Jazz, a button for the waltz, a codebook of contained messages, for so many listeners feelings and states of mind. I’m insanely curious as to how this wasn’t on ‘Late Night Blues’, as it was on the albums you’d expect the full entourage of explosions from an artists abilities. Big Bud is that insanely good, the ones that didn’t make it, still became highly prolific and enforced the message that some music is just above and beyond the steps of great. They shine the searchlight on everything else, just to help guide the rest to the promised land of purity. 

   What an incredible EP from Robin ‘Big Bud’ O’Reilly. A producer and engineer who conquered Good Looking Records like no other in my view. Constant quality, overly consistent output and memories to take to the grave and beyond. 

    We have another of Big Bud’s EPs heading our way very soon. He only had two in this series, so lap up the nutrients of his sound and resolve your fix very shortly. 

   My blog continues to gather these posts on Good Looking Records, with more associated with the label, to follow. As long as there is music on my shelf to share, there’ll be words for your enjoyment and some pics along the way. When we run out, there’ll be another project. Mark my word.