Radioslave Fabric 48 | Album Review

Sunday, September 20th, 2009 | Album Review

radioslave fabric House and techno lovers on a fabric subscription can breathe a sigh of relief after the Toddla T FabricLive release because the urban sounds of bashment and dancehalll make way for the hypnotic rolling beats of Radioslave. No stranger to the scene Radioslave has been consistently producing quality house and techno for a very good proportion of this decade. Initially starting life as a partnership between Brightonians Matt Edwards and Serge Santiago pumping out cheeky re-edits and bootlegs of pop songs. The Radioslave name has evolved some what over the years. A major milestone was when Serge Santiago went his separate way to leave Matt Edwards flying the moniker solo. And it’s precisely there where the Radioslave name veered off path into the dark and murky undergrowth. Out went the happiness; in came the dark and deep sounds. One thing that Matt Edwards was not afraid to do on his tracks is take his time getting to the point. His productions could wind and meander for minutes upon minutes leisurely strolling through the audio scenery making sure you had time to pick up on the slightest of details.

This nonchalance has transferred on to his offering for Fabric 48. The intro to the mix is literally spread over the first three to four tracks. Now that might sound tedious to listen to, and it would be was it not for the fact that this is a Radioslave production. The eerie whirring of Michel Cleis’ mix of Baeka’s Right At It murmurs the start of the mix. It gently bubbles to its crescendo of shakers and wood block rattles. For your standard mix this would be a logical place to drop in to some big ass beats and bass to get the mix fully going. Not Radioslave. He launches into his own track DDB, a heavy marching kick/clap combo which arrogantly makes itself known. Yet even though there is this change up in gears he’s still holding something back, keeping you precariously balanced on a cliff edge ready to drop you at any moment like some sadomasochistic gangster. And that’s how much of this mix flows for the first half – hypnotic tribal beats, whirring sounds and dark dark basslines which progress at a snails pace. Yet every twist and turn drip feeds you enough to keep you hooked as if you were a self medicating morphine addict. Every track edges you over the cliff that little bit more until you’re dropped into the abyss of Spencer Parker’s looping piano riffs on The Beginning.

So where does Matt Edwards go after spending a good proportion of the mix building an intro? He goes and dices around the genre, effortlessly flowing through different shades of house and techno like the mood lighting pattern on Christmas fairy lights. The mix pulses out cycles of dark mechanical throbs (Nina Kravis – Pain in the Ass) to looped US style garage house (DJ Bola’s Balada Redo), through to bongo lead conga rhythms (Spencer Parker – My Heart and Michel Cleis – La Mezcla). It bobs and weaves within well defined limits but it does so in such a way that the energy levels never wane, a hard thing to do when current house is hitting that saturation point of over worked bongo and jazz samples.

The opening to this mix is probably one of the best I’ve heard being laid down on CD. Matt Edwards is just the king of the slow build. The only gripe about this mix is that a CD can only hold 76 minutes which makes this mix feel like the first quarter of some spectacular marathon Berlin set. Does Fabric not know that CDs are not fit for a king? Bring the man a DVD or even a Blu-Ray.

Buy Radioslave – Fabric 48 from Amazon, HMV, Play.com

Tracklist (click for mp3):
01. Baeka – Right At It (Michel Cleis Deeper Remix)
02. Radio Slave – DDB // Cabin Fever
03. Radio Slave – I Don’t Need A Cure For This
04. Dance Disorder – My Time (Radio Slave’s Rekids Tribe Remix)
05. Brothers’ Vibe – Platter Sugar
06. Spencer Parker – The Beginning (Michel Cleis Remix)
07. Nina Kraviz – Pain In The Ass
08. DJ Boola – Balada Redo // Cabin Fever
09. Radio Slave – Koma Koma (Steve Lawler Remix)
10. Spencer Parker – My Heart (Daniel Sanchez Easy Noise Remix)
11. Michel Cleis ft. Totó La Momposina – La Mezcla
12. 2000 & One – Wan Poku Moro
13. Nate William’s Club Patrol ‘Maximum Overload’ (Roy’s Death Wish Mix)

Tags: Baeka, Brothers Vibe, Daniel Sanchez, DJ Boola, Michel Cleis, Nate William, Nina Kravis, Radioslave, Rekkids, Spencer Parker, Steve Lawler

1 Comment to Radioslave Fabric 48 | Album Review

TSL
April 5, 2011

I don’t know what this reviewer has been listening to but this album is very poor. It’s a hurricane of bongos and wood percussion punctuated by “right-on” jazz yelps and incomprehensible crap. The track selection is dull and uninteresting, the mixing is lazy and mechanical and the whole feel to the album is of a linear, unchanging journey along the M25. The album ends with a wimper and just fades away…. like my review…. zzzzzzzzz…..

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