West Norwood Cassette Library - Blonde on Blonde

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  • Starting off your label with a remix from David Kennedy (here appearing as Pearson Sound) is an auspicious beginning. When it's a remix of West Norwood Cassette Library, whose music so wonderfully taps into the house/dubstep crossover, there's some future zeitgeist voodoo going on there. The Danish Teal Records have done just that, and West Norwood Cassette Library's "Blonde On Blonde" picks up right where "Mrs. Fingers" left off. Grinding on a dusty sampled breakbeat, it has a discerning stomp amplified by a sample grinding in rude repetition like stuck gears. When the bassline comes in, it sounds far-off and aged, like it was sampled off some old jazz record. Indeed, the whole thing has an off-kilter feel, like it was composed entirely of repeating samples, an aesthetic as classicist in its ragged DIY nature as undeniably now in its futuristic reutilization of the past. David Kennedy's remix is either really old Pearson Sound material or really new: it sounds far off from the nerve-wracked hesitance of his recent productions, where drums hit so lightly and frequently it was like they were trying to keep from touching the ground. Here, his drum programming tic is straightened out into something almost straightforward, still oddly swung but predictable: it fits well within the original's ethos of banging and backward-looking house. The subtle build over eight minutes, lightly flecked with muted chords, also shows a new restraint on Kennedy's part: that he can play the chameleon so well is just another obvious exhibition of his considerable talent.
  • Tracklist
      A Blonde On Blonde B Blonde On Blonde (Pearson Sound Remix)
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