- Appointment is a label and production outfit made up of four Italian analogue fetishists: John Swing and EMG (from Relative Records) and Marieu and Lucretio (AKA The Analogue Cops, from Restoration Records). Their individual styles range from dusty house to searing techno, but all four are committed to the same production philosophy: all analogue gear, everything played live and recorded directly to tape. A few years ago this crew were making music together all the time, on Appointment and the excellent LiveJam Records. Since then they've mostly focused on other projects, but as Appointment Returns shows, they still do great things when they get together in the studio.
All four artists work together on each track, resulting in a fairly unpredictable jumble of styles. The A-side cuts are more full-on: the first has a kind of demented rave energy, with white-hot strings, garbled vocals and a charging rhythm, while the second rides a stuttering, two-step-ish beat (an occasional dalliance for this crew). The B-side tracks are smoother. B1 is a warm and fuzzy house number, offsetting muffled jazz samples (à la Moodymann) with a tidy acid line. The second is surprisingly subdued, with a balmy atmosphere and a ghostly parade of samples—distant guitars, sci-fi synths, what could be someone playing a saw. Each strikes a completely different note, and all four are delivered with the scruffy charisma that makes this crew so good.
TracklistA1 Untitled
A2 Untitled
B1 Untitled
B2 Untitled