Cat no: ET006
Release date: 29/04/11
BPM: 124
I don’t suppose I’m the only one who can point the trembling finger of blame at Emmanuel Top. My journey into acid roughly went: Hardfloor – Pump Panel – Emmanuel Top – London sound. They’re the motherships, the standards by which all others are judged. So naturally it’s with bunting, candles on cakes and cheeks red from blowing up balloons that we greet the French producer’s return after almost a decade. The first thing to say is that he’s embracing current trends, so anybody looking for Lobotomie Part Two should look away now; things have gone a bit mnml and dubby in Topland. But of course that makes perfect sense if you think about it; he always was minimal in the Robert Hood sense of the word, so it’s a progression that totally suits his sound, which remains dark and locked in. And if his new work is less full-on than the Top of old, it still has that weight, that sense of sparse elements combining to produce something brooding and powerful. Of the three single-track releases on his own label, Attack this one, Dominos, is the one I’ve been reaching for most, mainly because it’s the most 303 heavy of them all. It is, in fact, a majestic acid workout. Epic and unhurried, there are no drops or breaks, no builds no climax, just a 909 and 303 for almost ten minutes. It sounds fantastic in a mix and by itself is is a hypnotic masterpiece. He’s got another release upcoming upcoming on Planete Rouge, but in even better news there’s apparently an album on the way. As someone who spent much of 1996 buried in Asteroid I have one word to say about that, and it’s whoosh.
Get it from: Juno
A Chronicle of Rabbits 