The Modern Dance

When Your Heart Out first started its activities new music seemed to be quite strongly featured in its pages. It seemed a strangely exciting time for new sounds, and among those enthusiastically mentioned were Paul White, Bullion, Ahu and Floating Points. I think the label ‘wonky’ was just starting to be used to describe these downtempo abstract prog hip hop electronica folk soundscapes, and I’d listen to Alex Nut on Rinse FM on Saturday lunchtime, track down arcane mixes, and feel more excited about current music than I had for a long time. So don’t ask me what happened. On a personal level I guess I just became overly preoccupied with investigating dusty corners, and didn’t really have the drive to keep up with new developments. I didn’t exactly feel guilty, and I figured new music would get by without me pretty well.
And then late last year I found out One-Handed Music was giving away a free download of the new Ahu single To: Love, and this sort of reactivated my interest in new pop. Unless I missed it, however, Ahu didn’t top the charts around the world with this gorgeous modern electronic torch song. The label’s press said: “It’s a captivating performance from the Turkish singer whose unique style might be found somewhere between traditional soul and the studied remove of the likes of Broadcast’s Trish Keenan.” I was thinking more Andrea Parker on Mo’ Wax, but then I would.
I signed up to the One-Handed Music mailing list, and was delighted recently to receive some information about a forthcoming release by Mo Kolours, with a featured track that has a wonderful lazy Afro-Caribbean dub house feel and leaves you keen to hear and know more. Now comes the great news that OHM are offering a free download of Paul White’s 2009 CD The Strange Dreams Of … A fantastic treat if like me you somehow missed out on the physical editions of this collection of magnificent madness which evokes a random reassembling of a derelict Animal Collective.
The One-Handed Music site is also offering an opportunity to hear a mix by Bullion of various Canterbury Scene tracks, which is great fun and makes for perfect summer listening. Bullion’s own set, You Drive Me To Plastic, is now available as a download or as a vinyl edition featuring the 20-minute journey into sound on one side and an etching on the other which could see a return to the fine old tradition of asking … Anyway, it’s a great collage of beats ‘n’ bobs that provides an ideal soundtrack for the modern dance. It is somehow the sort of thing you might anticipate a Canterbury scenester coming up with in these fragmented times.