Temple Gong 2024
https://dmme.net/dabtronic-i-blinked-mezcakuba/
A couple of deeply danceable cuts from Detroit master of rhythm-and-cruise.
Although there’s not been a lot of music from David Asher since "Dub World" by THE PROCESS and "D.A.B." by the band bearing his name saw the light of day, the Michigander has never stopped dabbling with rhythms, and DABTRONIC, his superficially pop-oriented project, is a testament to the restlessness of creative spirituality. A couple of singles that introduce this endeavor, “I Blinked” and “Mezcakuba” demonstrate two not-too-divergent aspects of what it’s all about, the latter going for soulful elation and the former for admiration of the precious, yet both of them exploring mighty grooves with a great focus on mood and detail.
DABTRONIC –
I Blinked
Featuring a couple of British singers, the steaming youngster Janique James and the late post-punk pioneer Mark Stewart, “I Blinked” is just one song – approached from eight different angles to expose the finesse of its instrumental track and the ethereal allure of its topline tune. There’s a riveting riff to serve as an axis for the mellifluous “Dabtronic Mix” before “Dabtronic Dub” engages the simmering beats and blistering brass in an insistent aural swirl – equally slow but much sexier – and before the voiceless presentation of the same unfolds into a stunningly mesmeric panorama of the new act’s possibilities. Those prospects shine on the facets the “On.U Sound” mixes – with and without the warblers whose more in-your-face roles are swapped here – add to the palette, yet they’re narrowed down on “UFOA Remix” where low frequencies come out to crawl around, and on the pair of the Alien Levi mixes of the piece, one with the murmuring Rex Joswig on board, where the song’s creepy elements try to replace its melodic core.
DABTRONIC –
Mezcakuba
While all these variants dance around a four-minute mark, “Mezcakuba” that preceded them in chronological terms offers “Misled Convoy Peripheral Nervous System Remix” as an extended version of the single’s primary cut. This almost twice as long, cinematic and highly percussive experiment takes under a glitterball what in its original form is a raga-tinged electronic jive with a snippet of folk vocalese drenched in cavernous sonics, and in “On.U Sound Out The Box Mix” is given economic, if tasty, daubs of guitar and spoken word. The results of such methods feel liturgically anchored to the very history of David Asher’s chosen genre, but the restrained rapture on display might be uniquely his own.
With his new project’s full-length album on the horizon, these two numbers signal a start of something genuinely exciting.
***** / ****
