- The prolific cellist's little known dance music alias receives a timely retrospective, providing an era-hopping itinerary of rave past and present.
- British-born, Hong Kong-based cellist James Banbury has had one cat's worth of musical lives. If the name sounds familiar, you might be thinking of his work as Infantjoy where, alongside famed NME writer (and Art Of Noise founder) Paul Morley, he released modern classical-meets-glitch in the early '00s. Or perhaps you know him from his cello contributions to Luke Haines' 90s Britpop band, The Auteurs. Or maybe it's his recent work as one third of Blood, Wine or Honey, the experimental jazz trio making waves in Hong Kong.
These projects don't even take into account Banbury's production credits. He also lists the string arrangements on Snow Patrol's "Chasing Cars" and the soundtrack of Coyote Ugly on his CV. But long before his cello was wafting through the airwaves and being highlighted in Bandcamp features, Banbury was banging it out in UK warehouses with down-and-dirty UK hardcore. Now, for the first time since the early '90s, Silk Road Sounds are reissuing material from Banbury's least-known alias, The Magus Project. Then / Now is a retrospective that pairs original recordings with new material and four remixes, showcasing a far-reaching tapestry of contemporary club sounds that move beyond rave nostalgia.
The Magus Project's sole commercial release, Shoss, came out in the twilight of the UK rave years. The 1991 record was made with future drum & bass legend Bryan Gee and released on an imprint of British kingmakers Rhythm King, the label responsible for early Baby Ford and Bomb The Bass releases (not to mention being the first to license Moby in the UK). The sound that Banbury was pushing epitomized the swan song for the (extended) Second Summer Of Love, when the drugs and music had gotten speedier and harder and all that utopian dreaming was about to die a very public death at Castlemorton. Listening to the title track, later used by legendary promoters Fantazia on their Fantazia Takes You Into 1992 compilation, you can practically feel the comedown: house of horror rave stabs, terrified vocals and a bleep and bass-style low-end all conspiring to ruin someone's trip.
Listening back to that Fantazia comp, it's easy to imagine any one of those tracks working in a dark warehouse. And with the current penchant for high BPMs, cheesy vocals and large melodies in full swing, the appeal of Banbury's overlooked alias is obvious. But Then / Now is not mere revivalism. Two of the record's stand-out tracks, "No Guest List" and "Then / Now," were written over 30 years apart but share an agility and funk that many of Banbury's contemporaries lack. Judging them by their rave stabs alone, they border on gimmick gabber—but thanks to the swung drums and rubbery basslines, they end up sounding like hardcore tech house hybrids.
The other two originals are just as fluid as they move in and out of genres. The acid line on "Absolute Unit" is pure eccied-up euphoria, though the rapidfire breakbeat punctures the idyls of English pastoralism (a sound that Rec Mirages builds on in his remix of "High Counters"). This low-end weight is even more pronounced on "Don't Do It," which reminds me of Pangaea's last couple Hessle Audio releases, hitting that sweet spot between contemporary UK techno and rave.
While the record's four originals are worth the price of admission alone, the remixes offer a different perspective on Banbury's short-lived dance music career. On the first disc, for example, WheelUp remixes "High Counters" and ASJ flips "Agnostalgic," both originally '90s DAT gems. WheelUp continues to perfect his style of broken beat haziness, softening the abrasion of the original into a dreamy piece of sunset house. Likewise, ASJ reaches for the dimmer to mute "Agnostalgic" into a murky, undulating piece of IDM with the bassweight of deconstructed club.
Sometimes, it feels like we're at saturation point for '90s-inspired hard dance music—just look at TSHA's fabric presents mix, which shifted focus to the '00s. But Then / Now avoids any sort of fetishism by putting Banbury's work into conversation with sounds that feel completely contemporary, augmenting the past with the present to suggest there is still a future yet for some of the best ideas from the decade of rave.
Tracklist01. Then / Now
02. Don't Do It
03. High Contours (WheelUp Remix)
04. Agnostalgic (ASJ Remix)
05. No Guest List
06. Absolute Unit
07. Shoss (Konx-Om-Pax Remix)
08. High Counters (Rec Mirage Remix)