When the past sounds more like the future than the present does, revival becomes progressive. Some of the coolest sounds that have been bombarding the space capsule where your 20jazzfunkgreats psychonauts float in a zero G lotus position cradling chunky pulse rifles as they await for their rendezvous with the Beat, are those of the rave diaspora which kicked off many a year ago, spawning some of our most favourite bleeps, toots and horns, before sinking under the thick waves of excessive substance intake, whose bad digestion heralded much claustrophobic trashing in a zone where highly flammable outfits are the fashion de jour, and inane conversations with truculent hounds too frequent an event.
But as Pictureplane has shown us, there's much to be said for the sounds produced by the colourful collision of particularly hyper-accelerated breeds of dance music against the soft brains of the British youth in a green field somewhere in the outskirts of Chelmsford circa 1988.
Blissed Out is another master of that basic truth which is that you shouldn't have psychedelics without psychedelia, in his case burnished with liberal doses of fuzz which do nothing but enhance the feeling of confusion, chaos and paranoia of a trooper being digested by the collective monster in the best tradition of the suppressed pagan celebrations of yore, which is what rave is about.
'Empire State of Mind' is but one output of his effort, which will be thankfully leading to a full album later on in the year.
The chopped up vocals of a febrile dawn diva anthem are peppered with noises which are the creaking of the hinges of the badly oiled doors of perception as thrown open by Black Dice, while the systematic introduction of a murderous hi hat contribute to infuse the piece in question with a metronomic structure, somewhere in between Can and grime.
All hands in the air, clad in white gloves splattered with blood, now that's more like it.
Sister Mantos also knows what I am talking about. Some of the devilish workouts in his 'Tough Love or The Fands of Hate' album to be released by Sweetheart Society/Manimal in May do indeed come across like the feverish output of the Detroit secret conspiracy if their film club had featured more Tigon than German futurism. Dancing as a frantic race leaping from rooftop to rooftop across the skyline of a modern metropolis while it collapses under the attack of a super-advanced and merciless alien civilisation.
'This one goes out to all the unicorns, all the fairies, all the witches and the shamans and the believers of the unbelievable' over Roxanne Shante concrete beats and the distant glimmer of a perverted electro-pop jewel blending into the spectre of an Ibiza piano?
Get off our brains you telepath!