Monday, November 26, 2012

ghostrave



"LEE GAMBLE 'Diversions 1994–1996' (PAN 33)

'Diversions 1994-1996' is made up entirely from samples from the collection of Lee Gamble's Jungle cassette mixtapes. The audio has been subjected to analog and digital deformations, whilst trying to extract, expand upon and convey particular qualities emblematic of the original music. The effect is that of a musical body scan, all that is solid melts into air. Sounds are unearthed, dissected on the operating table, melted and unlocked, evoking sonics not unlike the heavy dub processes of Jah Shaka and Scion in a INA GRM frame of mind or bearing  a similar  methodological approach with what explored Mark Leckey in his piece "Fiorucci Made me Hardcore". It can be heard as a ‘memory’ of a period of music and for some could work as a ‘cued recall', which is a form of memory retrieval.    

Lee Gamble started out as a teenager dj-ing on pirate radio and on the emerging Jungle scene, however his own approach to music has taken a more experimental direction. Exploring the outer realms of abstraction through digital synthesis/resynthesis, Lee has described his current compositional process as: “…The configuration of material (ex nihilo) via various digital synthesis methods, prompts further disfigurations and reconfigurations. What you then have left is often the detritus or debris of an idea. Phantasms of both previous and current musical, pseudo-scientific and sculptural influences are manifest as new material abstractions, created from the digital blank canvas. This abstraction allows several interests to appear in the works simultaneously…”.  


So precisely targeted to my audio-erogenous zones (pirate radio tapes! INA GRM! Fiorucci Made Me Hardcore! Hauntology!) it almost feels like i made this up to take the piss out of myself... 

I mean to say, one of the tracks on this is titled "Rufige"!

But it's great. It deserves to call itself "Rufige". It does not take the sacred name of "Rufige" in vain.

Here's another tune off the album, "Dollis Hill", named, for the non-junglists out there, after the bit of North West London where 4 Hero and Reinforced Records hailed from.


 
 And here's another track from Diversions


  And here's one, that seems like it really ought to be on the album, cos it's called "DTI" after the old 90s name for the government outfit tasked with stamping out the pirates (now known as OFCOM) but it isn't on the eMusic version of the album i've just DL-ed, although the YouTuber who posted it identifies it as being from Diversions (confused? so am I)

 

Check out a video made by Lee Gamble and Dave Gaskarth to go with the album 
 

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