Pitch Black - Rude Mechanicals
The top end sounds skitter, resound, stretch and fatten for your aural pleasure, but the bass, ohhh the bass...
Ahem... excuse me for a minute while I compose myself.
Rude Mechanicals opens with an undulating baseline and an ethereal flute. Bubbles of dub drift from the speakers and pop on my ear drums. But these are not just any dubby bubbles, they're particularly Pitch Black bubbles. It's something that sits in the timing, in their gift for composition and their undeniable mastery of studio technology. In the film business the term auteur, refers to a director's creative style. For example, when you watch a Fellini film, you know that its Fellini's because of his style; he is the auteur of the film. So to adapt the phrase, if you know Pitch Black's music, you'll recognise Mike Hodgson and Paddy Free's auteur signature on 'Rude Mechanicals' immediately.
Pitch Black are prolific, with five albums released since their inception in '97, a couple of EP's and enough remix's to keep any electro-dub enthusiast happy. With 'Rude Mechanicals' there is perhaps an effort to include a couple of radio friendly tracks – alternative if not mainstream radio. The title track Rude Mechanicals which features KP and 1000 Mile Drift featuring Brother J stand out as being radio ready, and certainly prime candidates for hip-hop and drum-n-bass remixes.
Back to the bass… For my liking there is Please Leave Quietly which has a filmic ambience peppered with ghostly vocals, which in turn is anchored by a bottom end that initially reminds me of a snake breakdancing, and then expands into what I imagine a conversation between spaceships might sound like. Mike and Paddy have a knack of creating big rolling melodic synth lines that fill up the lower register of the human audio spectrum. I really don't care that teenagers can hear mosquito like noises that I, as a slightly older person can't hear. I don't care because I can hear the base on 'Rude Mechanicals and it is good. The album is warm and fulfilling, but I know it could sound better. I wish my home stereo was bigger, I wish I had a 10k sound system in my lounge room so I could hear the album in all its gut rumbling glory. I'm truly looking forward to hearing this album live.
Jamie
