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Once

Once

a review by dan hill of
release format Once by C-pij (CD Album)

text

Another mysterious release handled in mysterious fashion by the no9 agency, aka Tony Morley et al, aka Leaf head-honcho, aka, well, lots of other things. c-pij is a clandestine project in which anonymity is fundamental, both enabling musicians to release records they wouldn't feel comfortable doing under their real name, and also attempting to avoid prosecution for wholesale sample or publishing theft. In this case, Tim Buckley's intellectual property forms the basis of this actually rather beautiful record. A quick straw poll in the motion office suggests the Buckley song is 'Starsailor' (have a listen, and feel free to correct us on this via the comments facility), supported by an undulating bass line, minimal snatches of percussion, and subtle electronic drones. The unnamed producer of this cover version could be Gareth Thomas, as the sides of this cutely-packaged 7" are labelled G and T instead of A and B, and the opaque press release would indicate as such, though it's difficult to say for sure. Of course, Buckley's voice is one of the greatest in popular music though Thomas (the Singing Dentist?) has bravely taken him on, and his delicate, fragile phrasing is very nice indeed, forming the bulk of the G side. Side T of this release is a different kettle of fish. It's almost as if the slightly psychedelic folksy tune of side one has undergone a heavy Gaussian blur, smeared across an altogether darker terrain, the drones are suddenly forboding as opposed to supporting, the electronics are sparking unpredictably as if threshing live wires. This is scary, intense stuff, almost entirely formless for some minutes, before a sputtering and irregular jungle-like rhythm emerges from the wreckage, to these ears reminiscent of the mighty Jon Christensen's obliquely funky drumming for Ralph Towner's Solstice on ECM. So, a record of two sides then (ahem). The G side for whimsical yet rather lovely 70s folk given a fresh lick of electronica, the T side for those same textures driven through x-number of software filters (where x is a very large number), emerging as gloomily malevolent abstraction. Take your pick - it's cool either way.

Posted by dan hill at 00:00, 16 Feb 1999