DJ Alex Corton – Good Looking Records

Good Looking Records

Makoto – Musical Message EP

2002

Pushing on through the many sounds and musical wonders of Good Looking Records, we now feature our penultimate gatefold EP in this series. Makoto’s productions had become a rather large wave of work around the early 2000s, with a style that harnessed his jamming, jazz flavors and live elements. While this allowed a lot of his music to hit the listeners, there was also a little bit of cookie cutter sounds that made it more difficult to extract the real golden core of his skills. I’m a big fan of Makoto’s work, but I have to say that it’s nearly all set between 1998 and 2005 where I find the nutrition and creativity at its most appealing. 

    Gareth Jones is on the art detail for the ‘Musical Messages EP’, with a portrait, print shot of Makoto and those visually striking 3D ovals and whirling tentacles that resemble half machine, half sea creature. The colors blending from a gold to light blue add a warmth to the art, keeping this calm appeal. The art seems to capture a slow motion movement, turning and whirling its natural force into our view, drawing in the sounds that make this music lock with our psyche. 

    We have four tracks on this EP, three from the Japanese drum and bass producer and the a remix of his, of an MC Conrad track that featured on ‘Logical Progression – Level 4’. Makoto did actually remix ‘Futures Call’ for the ‘Logical Progression – Level 4 (Remixes)’ LP, which was only stated as ‘(Makoto Remix)’. On this EP it’s titled ‘(Makoto’s Tokyo Soul Remix)’ but I’m 100% sure it’s the same track. If anyone picks up on a variant in the tune, let me know. 

   On Side A, is a tune that is titled after a phrase that I can’t deny in any way, shape or form. ‘Music Has Never Let Me Down’, is a sentence that rings true for a lot of us, having lived through half of our lives with the culture and lifestyle of then and now. Life happens around everything else and it’s the wall of vinyl that acts as an emotional therapy session depending on the mood. The music on this side elevates one’s mood on that swaggering, rhythmic deluge that Makoto was making at this stage. It’s a finely produced track, snapping breaks, the constant pads and a riffed bass that always branded the tune with that Makoto seal. If it’s the midday sun that’s basking across your body, and the movement locks you into a state, then pop this pill of soulful, liquie-jazz music. 

   Side B is ‘Future’s Call (Makoto’s Tokyo Soul Remix)’, originally written and produced by the late, great master of many ceremonies, Conrad. Conrad has been such an important feature of these Good Looking Records reviews, not just with the lyrical flows of gold, but the productions across a few of the labels stables. As with Makoto’s studio sessions across the field, the hook up with these two and the jamming just intensifies the more this track plays. The snare led percussion, funky bass guitar from Ranvir Verma (who I know is laying down those head nodding string plucks with Conrad in the sessions up there), cruise along the backstreets and up cruising the boulevard on the shoreline, blinking lights one side and lapping waves the other, presenting the meeting place of all the good times.

You can tell from this piece of music how much influence and respect the two of them had for each other, putting this together and also dropping it out and about. Progression Sessions 6 is also where you’ll find this track too. 

    Plate one complete, we have two more tracks to review on this EP, tomorrow. 

If you have a spare minute or two in your day, my blog has a lot of Good Looking Records reviews on the site. I hope you get the chance to look through some of them on this site. Enjoy!