- Speaking to The Wire recently, Dimitris Papadatos described his Jay Glass Dubs project as "rewriting" the history of dub. Perhaps in his parallel world Leslie Winer is a star. Her 1990 debut album, Witch, though barely acknowledged until its reappraisal at the start of this decade, is considered a key influence on trip-hop. The spare spoken-word style of Winer's classic recordings still sounds remarkably modern, as if it could have been plucked from any point in the dub timeline since the advent of sampling. This collaboration between two artists separated by generations and continents (Winer is American, though she lives in France) sounds as if a snaggly loose thread in the dub-space continuum has been stitched closed.
The cosmic repercussions are considerable, as demonstrated on "Woodshedded," a howling whirlwind of drum machine and supercharged delay stalked by Winer's glowering imagery. The panoramic "About The Author" is almost as intense, throbbing with dread weight. Both tracks deviate from Winer's trademark minimalist style (and from her other recent collaboration, a meditative hookup with experimental composer CM Von Hausswolff). The duo ease off on "Cogged," whose kinda-industrial bassline and stoned head-nod vibe is closer to classic Winer. Further meditation comes from two instrumentals: the ashen "Tin Mine" and the stoned icy clank of "#29." But the mood remains intense, almost visionary, reaching its grand peak on "No Famous Actors." Winer's voice has a vocoder tang and the shuffling drums pass in confusing knots of delay. The whole thing shivers and smudges as if heard in a fever-dream—the sort where you lose track of time completely.
TracklistA1 Woodshedded
A2 Tin Mine
A3 Cogged
B1 About The Author
B2 #29
B3 No Famous Actors