Sometime between Record Store Day and Summer, Spirit of the Black 808 will release at least an album’s worth of material on two labels. Combined, the two EPs – Infroduction on Hizou and this one, Invasion of the Black Bass on Sounds of the City – form a kind of musical singularity, sucking in every element that makes up the foundations of modern electronic music in ever shrinking spirals toward the core. It’s all there – Jazz, Latin, Techno, Deep House, Acid, the push and pull of seven decades of people furtively stomping on cement and splinters until people with truncheons tell them to stop.
Spirit of the Black 808 has been releasing records that in retrospect chronicles the process of approaching perfection – Guerrilla Shit, Analog Funktions, Dirty Jointz – and now we’re here. “Invasion of the Black Bass” begins harsh and discordant, like a scarecrow planted at the gate to put a scare in the straights. Wobbly sheet metal synths crash and the most beautiful groove emerges – a bit like the grimy boogie of some of Richard H. Kirk’s solo records. This is one of those tracks that sounds like a concentrated, dehydrated and condensed DJ mix – it takes you on a journey, and by the end you can even hear the hint of a whole new project buried in a bassline shift. ”
Invasion of the Black House” works not like a remix or an edit of the previous song but a fugue, a genetic mutation by way of antique sampling culture brought into the present. I warned you this was some heady shit, and you can really get high off it.
The B side is taken up by “Frenzy in Firenze,” which quite literally sounds like a slice and a sample from every form of American roots music slapchopped into a new track.
