General Ludd - The Fit Of Passion

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  • When Rich McMaster, an American, first started collaborating with Tom Marshallsay, an Englishman, in Glasgow, it was for sound installations. You wouldn't know that from their debut 12-inch as General Ludd, which, like most Mister Saturday Night releases, is rip-roaring house music with some techno grease smudged in the grooves. Like the other MSN releases, there's a touch of weirdness as well. On The Fit Of Passion the duo make clichéd material sound fresh and interesting. There's something inviting about the ropy disco bassline that forms the foundation of "Woo Ha," but its whiplash motions send the track into a hedonistic frenzy of vocal grunting and chord stabs. Heavy delay on the blocky synths only add to the chaos—it's the kind of thing you'd imagine the Mister Saturday Night residents playing at their Sunday afternoon parties. "Brothers And Sisters" borrows from a nearly dried out well when it samples the same Soul Children track used in countless other records, most memorably DJ Sprinkles' "What Is This World Coming To?" (They even use the kind of effects you'd hear on Sprinkles' headier moments.) But they pull it off anyway, flipping deep house clichés so that the jazzy Rhodes sounds anxious and insular, and piling on pseudo-tribal drums that kick it into forward motion.
  • Tracklist
      A Woo Ha B Brothers and Sisters
RA