DJ Alex Corton – Vinyl Reviews

Good Looking Records

Rantoul – Changing Landscapes

2000

For the second Good Looking Records EP of the year 2000, we now warmly receive the talents of Ian Rantoul. By the time he had produced this EP, Ian had already shown his metal in the atmospheric circles within the Good Looking Records camp, with tracks like ‘The Ladder’, ‘Too High’ and ‘Changeling’ among a few of his productions, Rantoul was showing his talents and unleashing a clinical and artistic flare for the atmospheric music scene. My blog has write ups for those aforementioned tracks, so scan back and check them out!

Having this EP released in this series is testament to that work. Let’s get things underway.

    The artistic duties for this sleeve have the dream team of Nick Purser and Gareth Jones, providing this impressive display of creativity. The soaring architecture on the front with the firey orange glow is a superb contrast to the underground, abandoned looking nightclub that shows a lone DJ mixing in the shadows, within the gatefold. Then the back sleeve has the magnified structure that welds and joins things together and I also spot a ‘Vapor’ logo on there. Now, what was all that about? A label for Rantoul?

   This must have a story behind it, so I’ll leave it to Nick & Gareth to spill the beans. 

“This one is a very personal [Gareth] favourite. The warm orange hues were so good. There weren’t many that Nick Purser and I specifically collaborated on, although we often tried things independently when working on singles, albums etc. Just in case something next-level came out. This was one of those moments. If I remember correctly, Nick had nailed most of it, then I had a play with some of the artwork elements, and the cover image came together – so a great example of how we interwove our ideas and exploration. We also had a bit of an obsession with Tadao Ando’s work, which came across very strongly in this artwork. The ‘Changing Landscape’ element was all about the buildings and architecture shifting and changing into different structures, almost transformer-like. It’s a shame that we weren’t animating stuff back then, as this would have been amazing in motion too.”

    This is a Limited Edition of 3000 and this copy is No: 000891.

   On Side A, we have the electric sizzling of hyper space, spinning a blitz of excessively charged currents into the mainframe. ‘Interact’ is a track that rolls the fingerprint out onto the rap sheet that confirms this is a Rantoul production. It’s a big change in style from the previous EP in this series from LTJ Bukem, showing that there was a jazz side and a more futuristic and sci-fi, inside this circle running hand in hand. The electro style bass, zips-zaps and laser jolts emissions within this track, and that mechanical functioning of the beats, all conglomerate for a musical voyage through the circuit board of Rantoul’s work. Listening to this track, always raises my eyebrow with wonder, as to why Rantoul didn’t release anything on 720 Degrees, given his sound? It was made for Blame’s label in my view. Regardless, it landed on Good Looking and kept things interesting with the way things were going. 

    On Side B we have the hauntingly beautiful ‘Modular’ to set the angels free. This is a track that blows my mind when I hear it. Rantoul merges the future sounds and takes these laser bolts (which could have sounded really tacky), and utilizes them with these drifting pads, quality snapping breaks and those infectious synth/keyboard notes which almost sound like a string pluck at times so maybe it’s from a sitar setting or something? Then those encroaching and fading chimes, combing through the fibers for this breathtaking and addictive presentation. What a superb piece of music. So original, catchy and so…well, Rantoul. Brilliant work! 

    More from the second half of this Rantoul EP, tomorrow. My blog is here (as mentioned above), if you are interested in reading up on the Good Looking reviews, thus far. I hope you enjoy them!