Thursday, November 26, 2009

gorgeous 90's magic realism


''The original idea behind 808 State's ''Pacific''
was an attempt at modern equivalent of fifties
'exotica' :Graham Massey was a big fun of Martin Denny,
who's tiki music (quasi-Polynesian mood-music for suburban
cocktail parties)often featured tropical bird-calls.

On the album 90,'Sunrise' was a far superior take on the same idea.
tendrils of flute,mist-swirls of spectral sample-texture and lambent
synth-horizons conjure up a Polynesian dawnscape.

On this track and the earlier 'State Ritual' (which sounded like
aborigines trying to make Acid House using flutes and wooden
gourds),808 State are denizens of the 'Fourth World'(Jon Hassell's
term for a future fusion that melded Western hi-tech and traditional
ethnic musics as sketched on albums like Dream Theory In Malaya)''
words Simon Reynolds (Energy Flash)
808 STATE - SUNRISE

2 comments:

el jeffe said...

i lnew they had to mess with with john hassle the textures were all the same.. that 12" is dope still love it!

Arthit said...

I remembered the album so well as it has been played over and over on my walkman. It was probably one of my first "dance" albums from an artist as opposed to some mixtape of dance singles.