Visionquest’s
2011 track-record in unearthing fresh and new
musical directions looks set to continue into the new year if the standard of the debut
recording from
Life & Death are anything to go by. Comprised of the members of
Tale Of Us and
Thugfucker, ‘
Step Aside (Lightweight)’ is the new quartet's first release: a low-hung, lazy house track that makes critical use of
Scott McCloud’s deadpan, cool-as-fuck
vocals.
As warm analogue synth lines narrate the drums and lackadaisical bass,
the track swells and swells, with acid gurgles rising to the fore-front as the
cut peaks and drops into multiple melodic troughs. McCloud’s idiosyncratic vocals
make this tune, and '
Step Aside (Lightweight)' takes it
position as perhaps the finest piece of underground pop that the label has
produced yet.
B-side
‘Morgana’ whirrs and kicks as a piece of
sleek and polished tech-house in that ‘
Watergate’ tradition of
balancing minimalism and melody. An enigmatic synth-line hook grows
and mutates as the track progresses, providing a warm core and giving weight to the light rattling percussion that drops in and out of the
arrangement, dragging the listener further into the track’s darkened corridors
of musicality. It's tech-house at both its most palatable and most deranged.
With news that remixes of the tracks from Carl Craig and Jamie
Jones are due soon, 2012 looks to be another stellar year for Visionquest and
the members of Life & Death.