With so much wonderful music knocking around here in the Abstract studio, we thought we'd take the opportunity to showcase a few very special items that are close to our hearts. Our choices for Tune of the Week may be fresh through the door, or decades old - our aim is that they will always epitomise the ethos of AbstractRadio...
When deciding on a new t-o-w, there's much to consider. With a whole pile of cracking tunes to choose from, all with their own distinctive merits, choices often become complicated - we want to give everything we like some accolade, but there can only be one.
One method we employ here at AbRad Towers is to ask the question: "OK, so you obviously rate it now, but how do you think it will sound in six months time? Or six years even?".
Sometimes it is necessary to block out the immediacy of a piece of music to determine its true quality. Tracks can be instantly appealing, grabbing your attention and filling dancefloors, but there's a good chance that sometime down the line that catchy hook will become an annoyance; transformed almost overnight from fresh floor-filler to jaded cliche. For some, this happens the moment a track hits the mainstream - it's hard to be credible to the cool set if
M&S are using it to sell life-style choices. For others, the sound becomes dated, or simply over played.
So, this question of judgement is not merely one of: "Is it in the box?", but more "How long does it stay in the box?".
And then, every once in a while, there's "How did we possibly manage to survive for so long without this being in the box?", which brings us rather nicely to ...
Art of Tones
- The Rainbow Song -
Local Talk Records LT060
Annoyingly gifted Paris-based Ludovic Llorca has been tearing them off for quite some time now, producing a fair number of AbRad faves, including the wonderful
The End (under his own Llorca moniker), as well as numerous Art of Tones productions including Elephants (more on this another time) and his brilliant rework of
La Fleur's Kattflickan. With "The Rainbow Song" he's back on Swedish based
Local Talk Records, which makes this the second swedish AbRad t-o-w in a row. Utomordentlig!
Why do we rate "The Rainbow Song" so highly? Genuinely, what's not to like? Firstly, there's that filthy little bass-line - more than dirty enough to catch the ears of lovers of all things deep, but still keeping things all ship-shape and funky fashioned. There's also the clever use of a vox sample, lifted, we believe, from Musique's "In The Bush" (it's fairly hard to tell seeing as it's been mucked around with so much). Under this there's a summer-drenched keyboard groove pulsing along, effortlessly pushing those feel-good vibes to the max. And finally, there's those pesky cowbells.
Frankly, it's really hard to resist a good cowbell, and this is a pretty good cowbell.
Nice one Ludo, we're looking forward to having many years of fun with this.
Moooo!
