- The success of Cardiff's DJ Guy reflects our times. In an era where dance music is obsessed with reviving forgotten ideas and celebrating the sounds of age and decay, here's a new artist building a career on tracks he made in the '90s. Guy's grubby studio doodles channel several styles of the era: Detroit's sci-fi drive, the raucous energy of UK hardcore, early IDM's anything-goes spirit. What's most extraordinary about his output is that it just keeps coming. This double-pack for the Danish label Nord, following releases on All Caps and Crisis Urbana, features yet another eight tracks sourced from the producer's cassette horde. As with fossil fuels, the well will doubtless run dry at some point, but until then we're having a great time.
Most striking is the opener, whose gritty breakbeat and distant sirens are suffused with rude UK energy circa 1992. Then there are a couple of "ACID" tracks, one a sweaty basement workout, the other on a wistful IDM tip, both frenetic and fun though not groundbreaking. Elsewhere, Guy could sometimes benefit from more sonic discipline, as in "CDS90 (A6)" and "BX90 (A4)," whose tracky grooves lack a little punch and flex. He does best when he makes ugly work for him. "AS54 (A3)"'s tightly woven percussion shimmers with phasing effects, while "AS54 (B1)" ping-pongs along at 150 BPM. You can see why these experiments never made it onto a dance floor at the time, but the '90s' loss is our gain. Things conclude with the gentler "BASF CHROME (A6)," whose repitched rave chords are rendered in unusually wispy tones and softened with delicate arps. Guy's music might be two decades old, but it continues to throw up surprises.
TracklistA1 CDIIF TAPE SIDE (B1)
A2 AS54 (A3)
B1 CDS90 (A6)
B2 AS54 (B1)
C1 BX90 (A4)
C2 AS54 ACID (A4)
D1 AS54 ACID (A2)
D2 BASF CHROME (A6)