Saturday 15 February 2014

BLM - Spwn Camping- Contrast-Wax



British wunderkind BLM and Contrast-Wax were always going to make a perfect match. The savvy vinyl-only label and the outstanding young producer, who is one half of the incomparable Fear Of Flying imprint, clearly share similar values on aesthetics, quality and style. It was always going to work. 

Yet neither party surely could have envisaged that the Spwn Camping EP would actually turn out to be such a thing of beauty. Ten-inch vinyl, 100 copies and two top-rate tracks add up to one formidable release.

From his debut release on FOF back in 2006, BLM was marked out as a talent and it has been a delight to see that early promise realised and blossom with stand-out work not only for his own labels (he is also behind Sudden Drop alongside FOF partner Jay Robinson aka Jay Massive) but also for Secretsundaze, Tsuba and Jus-Ed’s Underground Quality. That talent is present and correct here for Contrast too.

A tad less chunky and just a touch more restrained too, opening track Range Mod is nonetheless of a similar hue and standard as the young Ben Micklewright’s  Roll ‘Em EP for UQ a couple of years back. It really is that tasty. Packing an understated punch, Range Mod is perhaps BLM’s finest moment thus far for these ears and displays all the quality and maturity of an up-and-coming talent now come of age.

All of which may have rendered the b-side a disappointment by comparison. Fear not though as the bristling and curiously melodic eponymous track Spwn Camping has a shuffling, ethereal and hi-tek charm all of its own thanks to BLM’s undoubted ability.

File under ‘need/want’.

No comments:

Post a Comment