The Time And Space Machine - New Masters Volume 2

Norris is the kind of super-talented individual that, if he didn’t come across as so down-to-earth and pleasant in everything he does, you would expect to find sickening. Whether it’s with his mate Erol Alkan rebuilding indie-crossovers into weird dance-floor destroyers as Beyond The Wizard’s Sleeve, making relatively straight-forward house and techno as one part of The Grid or producing and remixing under his own name, Norris’ relevance in the fickle dance music community seems almost godly. Not many people can claim to have made their first underground record in 1989, and still be bubbling away on the tip of the scene’s tongue twenty-one years later. 

 
Not one to rest on his laurels, New Masters 2 demonstrates that Norris’ intuitive ear is still tuned to the latest sounds and artists emerging from the world of disco; with the exception of Visti & Meyland and Space, every artist on the release is at some point in their formative years. The freshness of the record and the fact you’re unlikely to have heard of most of the offerings is the record’s single strongest point; a narration through a landscape of future disco kings and queens. 

 
Disco is a word that is liberally banded on this record; from beardy drone folk (Yellow Moon Band’s Polaris) to soothing Balearic beats (Pollyn’s This Little Night), and everywhere else in-between. Trampling the usual genre constraints, Norris hops from ‘60s psychedelic references to krautrock feedback to sexy NY conscious-disco with surprising ease. Of course, like any diverse compilation some of the cuts won’t be to everyone’s tastes. The purposely cliché house-piano riffs and cheesy vocals of Visti And Meyland’s Stars are somewhere between incredibly grating and strangely charming. Elsewhere, Bastila’s Ghosts has slow drums and indie vocals that make for drifting spliff music, but seem a little lacklustre compared to other offerings. 

 
Norris’ style is so undefined and individualistic to each track that one sound or idea doesn’t prevail over the whole record. This in itself leads to a bit of a conundrum; whilst being a musical chameleon is clearly a technical strength, the album lacks any character derivative from the man behind it. The end result feel less like a cohesive TTASM offering, and more like a solid label compilation.