- Having regularly recorded for Force Inc. - the latter Force Inc. with the brown sleeves - Billy Dalessandro can be relied upon to hit hard. 'In the Dark', left to run for its entirety on John Digweed's ‘Fabric’ mix, was dazzling: dumbly repetitive, simplistic and tough, it hypnotized when so much new-acid didn't. 'Don't Sleep' is just as straightforward but, without the 303, not nearly as mesmerising.
Dalessandro's original opens with percussion sharp like shaved ice, but also thin and wet. 'Don't sleep' is spoken in a scary voice (think Richie Hawtin in 'Closer'), which is rhythmically looped while the drums keep circling and random grey chinks make appearances. A three-note Casio rhythm adds meat to the bones, but doesn't disrupt proceedings. Brian Farr's 'Afraid of the Dark' mix adds words, in the same voice, and syncopated low-end steam emissions. It's made groovier with busier percussion in the form of small flat pops but otherwise follows the same driving pattern. Finally, Slutbox's remix breaks the momentum into shorter staccatoed chunks, approaching Basic Channel terrain with flanging dub pulses, only this is busier, and it has those vocals. Brief passages of grey blips dance between the shadows, but by track's end we're right where we started.
Hardly essential, but there's a spooky charm to be found in these unwaveringly bleak rhythms.