Track-By-Track: BSU #03
If you want an accessible summary (with all its limitations) of what Plaid, Mark Broom, Dave Hill and co. were up to in the early 90s you can do worse than the RBMA article 'The Untold Story of London Techno' from 2015.
There's a particularly fun anecdote about Warp trying to sign up all the main artists in the scene in a London pub. For some, like Plaid, that led to a multi-album deal; for others, like Kirk Degiorgio, it led to disillusionment with the whitewashed story Warp (and presumably others) were telling about the roots of this new strand of UK electronic music.
This tune by Repeat, from a late (final?) EP in 2001, is an exercise in in-betweenness. The sound palette is synthetic but the groove is loose and swung. The opening and closing sections, broken and funky, bookend a military 4/4 midsection. Play it on 45 like I usually do and it's unexpectedly slamming; at its intended 33, it's druggy, almost swampy.
Incidentally this was a free promo sent to me by discogs seller bonemill, when I bought a different record on UXB - big ups bonemill!
Repeat - Easter (Unxplored Beats, 2001)
(Discogs)
Note: this is an entry in the Track-By-Track series for my mix for Butter Side Up.
Track-By-Track is a series that looks back at records you will have heard in my mixes, one by one in the order they were played. Who made them, and when? How did I come across them? And what do they make me feel?