Many folks consider this Digweed's proper debut solo DJ mix, which is funny considering how long he'd been spinning records up to that point. Heck, he'd just done a set for Global Underground the year prior, and a solo follow-up to his and Sasha's seminal Renaissance set half a decade earlier. Not to mention various odds and ends that slipped through the radar for various reasons. Most of those were in service of other brands though, but by the end of the '90s, Digweed was a brand unto himself. And what better time to expand that brand than by propping up his newer brand, the freshly minted label Bedrock.
Bedrock became a short-lived series itself, but this inaugural outing clearly overshadowed the follow-ups. When people think Bedrock, they think Digweed, and all the artists featured on his label were there because of his
Forget Heaven Scent. What matters is all the music before it on that tasty CD2. Prog has plenty of criticisms, some of which rear their heads in this set (only ten tracks, what?), but I cannot deny the tunes included here do the business proper-like for my earholes. The opening track alone (Ba Ba (Human Movement Remix) from Pob & Taylor) gets on that hard, techy brand of prog that Steve Porter would launch a career from. The Bedrock rub on Heller & Farley's The Rising Sun practically defines the dark, chugging style that prog would build its reputation around (“deep, deep, dub”). And while it's no Breeder, Sandra Collins' Flutterby pulls closely enough from the the same tech-trance lane such that the sound gets its just representation in this set. Oh, and Markus Schulz is here too, his early Dakota track Swirl offering one of the few melodic moments. Guess Digweed needed something to make the anthemic melodies of Heaven Scent not seem as out of place.
All this gushing over CD2, but what about CD1? Yeah, about that. Two decades later, and with multiple attempts, including most recently, this one just doesn't stick in my head that well. It's the dreaded other critique against prog, its more vapourous tendencies for long stretches, and believe you me, this problem would persist in the following editions of Bedrock.
Maybe CD1 is just too sluggish compared to CD2, and thus always forgotten whenever I play them back-to-back. Oddly, the vocal stuff leaves the only impression, like in Moody from BPT, the Fluke-ish True from Morel, and the quaint robotic Hawkins-speak in We Are Connected from Jodi & Spesh. Who'd have thought vocals would be the best part?
ACE TRACKS:
Morel - True (Vocal and Dub; they're kinda' mashed together here)
Pob & Taylor - Ba Ba (Human Movement Remix)
Heller & Farley - The Rising Sun (Bedrock Remix)
2 comments:
Heaven Scent was deliberately written as a closing track for the Bedrock nights at Heaven in London (hence the name) so its placement right at the end here makes sense.
The first disc is very closely based on the first hour of his Essential Mix from 1999, and to me perfectly represents the sleazier NYC house part of their Twilo residency. Sounds a helluva lot better through those BBC Radio 1 compressors, of course...
The impression on this side of the Atlantic was that Heaven Scent was deliberately written as the closing track for the movie Groove.
Seriously though, I do get that it's a 'choon' designed for That Big Moment out in a club night, but something about it never quite sat right with me, especially within this set. It just wasn't the kind of sound I came to Digweed for, but hey, it was the late '90s, when every jock had to have a signature anthem tied to their brand.
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