RBRBR: Masick's Blues CD-EP
A new band doing some very strange things with dance music - imagine someone taking electronic dance music as their template, slowing it down, giving the songs a seventies feel, chilling the rhythms out into early nineties ambient, injecting a distinctly bluesy feel to the proceedings and then delivering a song with more twists and turns than Hampton Court Maze, and you have the title track of this eighteen minute CD-EP. Influences as disparate as "Listen Now"-era Phil Manzanera, early Orb and incredibly laid-back Prince are just three elements that go to make up the atmospheric but chunky brilliance that is the lead track of this CD, and one that just oozes quality form every pore, catchy rather than commercial, and 8 minutes that grab your subconscious and refuses to let go. "Late Night Tuna Train" starts with a slow but meaty guitar riff, marching rhythm section and a lightly raw lead vocal, as the whole thing lurches onwards, piling on some solid rhythms, harmony vocals and with shards of lead guitar and bubbling space synths shooting out at all angles as the song travels on. Once again, befitting its subject, the song travels round bend after bend, revealing new facets as it goes, with that bluesy guitar work following on from some surging instrumental work as the harmony vocals gather and the song strays into atmospheric mode so naturally you'd think the thing was organic. Then, all of a sudden, it ends - and we're immediately into the final track, "FMA" where, more than any time so far, the Prince element comes into play, with a whispy high-register vocal, ambient rhythms, a seriously laid-back arrangement from the guitars, electronics and rhythm section, but at the same time engaging and…..well…..ambient. There's a really delicious bluesy guitar lead that's so sleepy you can almost hear it snoring, and the track is very much the "late night chillout" piece, but works a treat.
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