Margaret Dygas - Stars Are Only Light

  • Subtle, pulsing and filled with kaleidoscopic detail, Margaret Dygas returns for Half Baked's 20th release.
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  • When Half Baked started hanging bicycles on the ceilings of warehouses in the late '00s, they were one of the few London parties who could convincingly import both the hedonism and the stripped-back house of the German capital over the English channel. Founders Remi Landaz and Bruno Ciaramicoli hosted artists ranging from Mike Shannon to Vera to Le Loup, to play from Sunday well into Monday afternoon. Although forged within the minimal scene of that period, Landaz and Ciarmicoli's project has adapted to changing times. These days you're as likely to hear Evan Baggs as Mathew Johnson, and their label has charted a similar narrative, from the squishy melodies of birdmakingmachine to the UK garage and dub of Arno. To celebrate 20 releases, Landaz and Ciaramicoli cast a glance backwards, tapping Perlon royalty Margaret Dygas for her first solo release since 2016. Stars Are Only Lights In The Sky is quintessential Dygas, and quintessential Half Baked: three tracks of groovy, subtle house with pulsing basslines, sprinkled with melodic flourishes. The record unfolds a bit like a Half Baked party. Dygas moves from the cover of darkness into sunrise, finishing in that mushy place where it's hard to tell the difference. On "Butterfly Effect," she pitches a ricocheting synth line low in the mix and brings in minor key strings with a touch of late night menace. (It's almost like her impression of Binh.) Where the A-side is about tension, the flip is about release: Dygas takes a looped groove and generously fills the high and mid frequencies with bright, jazzy chords and springtime mating cries from her hardware. She closes with one of her trademark atmospheric numbers. There are drums in "Subliminal 20A7," but the track's booming sub bass and muffled arpeggio interrupt any regular rhythm. While the long, drawn-out loops of classic minimal have gone out of vogue in most corners of clubland (at least for now), Dygas is a particularly canny choice for the label's 20th release. She might be best known as a traditionalist (the B-side from 2016's Even 11 was so skeletal that it could make Ricardo sound like 100 Gecs), she also knows how to push the genre forward. Her 2015 split 12-inch with Bambounou, for example, moved with a UK garage swagger that anticipated the syncopated minimal that defines parties like Half Baked now. On Stars Are Only Lights In The Sky, Dygas stakes a claim to even more common ground between the worlds of the old and new. These are minimal tracks that are headsy and patient, but also filled with humor and drama, if you know where to look and listen.
  • Tracklist
      A1 Butterfly Effect B1 CC Is 33 B2 Subliminal 20A7
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