Posted 2011-02-09 in Releases   Permalink

DSK001: A Taut Line & Hong Kong In The 60s - Unwoken

Unwoken is the first solo release by the Tokyo-based/Cambridge-bred producer and DJ Matt Lyne, aka A Taut Line. The EP follows remixes for the likes of Darling Farah, Luke Abbott, Drums Of Death and Starlings, and releases on Japanese labels such as Klee, Kidz Rec and Horizon.

Matt has been living in Japan for over 5 years, and his music is infused with a sense of dislocation and slight melancholy familiar to anyone who has been away from their native country for a long time. However, he has also kept up to date with developments in international dance music through running the Diskotopia club nights - and DJing alongside people like James Murphy, M.I.A, Hudson Mohawke, Mary Anne Hobbs, Optimo, Ivan Smagghe, Goth-Trad and many more– and this has also fed into his production.

Matt’s influences stretch from cutting-edge bass music to classic house and disco, taking in the ‘80s film soundtracks he grew up with, and the mesmeric tuned percussion he picked up from his classical training, studying composers such as Steve Reich, on top of his long-term love for Chicago post-rock artists such as Tortoise.

Unwoken features an exclusive new collaboration with the band Hong Kong In The 60s, who formed in London in 2007, and since then have released two acclaimed EPs of bittersweet radiophonic pop, and have featured on numerous international compilations. In 2010, the band’s collaboration with The Advisory Circle formed part of the Ghost Box label’s Study Series, slotting in alongside contributions by Broadcast, Mordant Music, Belbury Poly and Moon Wiring Club.

Hong Kong In The 60s‘ collaboration with A Taut Line takes their signature dream-like sound on to the dance-floor, without sacrificing any of the intoxicating atmospherics that the band specialises in. Don’t Wake Me filters the band’s plaintive electro-lullaby through the phantasmic narco-disco of the Italians Do It Better label and the unearthly dubscapes of Lee “Scratch” Perry and Augustus Pablo. To this mix, A Taut Line adds his own freewheeling percussive attack and a dash of The Aztec Mystic’s hypnotic Detroit sound.

The second track Unwoken, co-written by Chris Greenberg from Hong Kong In The 60s, takes the classic house sound of Mr. Fingers and Fallout into a sub-aquatic realm of hypnagogic delirium. She Swims immerses the ‘90s Gallic disco-house of Cassius and Étienne de Crécy’s Super Discount in waves of trance-inducing cosmic synth and zero-gravity euphoria. The early 90s house homage Luna 99’s combination of roof-raising tribal percussion and haunting minimalist atmosphere betrays the influence of such artists as The Ethics, The Goodmen, Nightcrawlers, The Bucketheads, and too many childhood nights spent falling asleep to Pete Tong’s Essential Selection.

An all-star cast of remixers has been assembled for the Unwoken EP, headed by the legendary electro and post-punk pioneer Stuart Argabright in his Dominatrix guise. Further reworkings come from: nu-skool electro/boogie combo Royalty aka Chesca & Elliot Yorke (of UK hip-hop leading lights Foreign Beggars), whose track Twilight Fades was a standout moment on Dâm-Funk‘s Future Of Modern Funk mix for Mary Anne Hobbs last year; A Taut Line’s fellow Tokyo-based expat BD1982, whose uniquely skewed and squelchy take on modern bass ‘n’ beats has taken in numerous releases on Philly kingpins Starkey and Dev 79’s Seclusiasis label; and 19-year old Dallas producer LDFD, whose impressive jazz-schooled production chops surely promise a big future for him in the world of wonky beats and bass.

There is also an amazing gamelan-acid remix of Don’t Wake Me by reclusive Osaka producer, Ningyo available as a free download. You can download the Ningyo remix HERE

Look out for DSK002: BD1982 -VHS NITE with remixes from:

Optimum & Ikonika, Starkey, Slackk and A Taut Line.