‘Can you vision this place?Where music defines our every move. A place where music is a sanctuary. A place where music is a winding road that leads to the most beautiful rainbow. A place where music is more important than the DJ, the promoter, the venue, the producer’.
Aye, I can ‘vision’ it all right. This is the ‘vision’ we call Tescos – and we go there every Saturday morning right after swimming to see which CDs can be grabbed for less than the price of a ‘Finest Lasagne’. But neither the music nor the winding road leads to the most beautiful rainbow exactly. It’s leads to the fish-counter. And if we have anything left after buying peas, pasta and pop it’s entirely likely we’ll come away with something like this: the latest in a long (and possibly infinite) line of Session plates from the illustrious Ministry Of Sounds – this time bagged up and price-tagged up by British DJ, producer, MoS resident and Toolroom Records founder, Mark Knight. But you see that’s what’s wrong with music today – it’s ubiquitous, it’s bloody everywhere. Not only does it define our every move, it defines our every purchase, our every TV show, our every swimming session and just occasionally our every trip to the lavatory. The evil isn’t necessarily branding (which doesn’t help), it’s the fact that you can pick it up more cheaply, more conveniently and more carelessly than ever before. It used to be the case that I would pour over the contents of a record stack for weeks before ever venturing to hand over my £12.50. Now I just slip one into the basket along with a packet of disposable razors and a bag of baby-wipes. In fact, by the time I get home, I’ve usually forgotten all about it. Until I need a shave, that is. Or the kid’s arse needs wiping.
But really, we mustn’t grumble. I could reserve any of the above for just about anything we get in at Crud. It’s just the branding makes it that little more obvious.
Knight’s Sessions debut is an intriguing affair, with CD1 barely fizzing above a soft and loungey electro pulse (Telepopmusik, Gus Gus, Shlomi Aber, Atrium) and CD2 loosening the acid like an incontinent 90s raver – Dave Spoon and Mark Knight’s cloud-busting bloop tundra, ‘Afterhours’ pretty much setting the tone for a slightly proggy techno itinerary that includes the marvellous ‘All Alone’ by Splitter, the Latiny ‘Drummin’ from Alex Wizz and the tap-frenzy workout of ‘Work It’ from Workidz.
Not unpleasant by any means. In fact, quite tasty.
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