Motown released twenty #1 singles during the 1960s. Freed by the digital marketplace from having to package, market or even pay for releases, today’s Berry Gordys hold on to the notion that a guy in his boxers with a laptop can do better than the greatest record label in history.

Or so you’d think from the oceans of records some of them spit out – each week, a new EP, released at a rate faster than even the hardest working DJ with the worst taste could process. Unfortunately for their dreams of creating a new Motown in the cloud, reality is a dull 2×4 to the temple: iTunes may have 28 million songs in stock, but 80% of them have never been paid for even once.

So it’s been four years since Josh Wink released an EP. He’s released an album in that time, and Ovum has been churning out releases, but you have to respect a person who takes a hard look at the pathetic state of the market and decides not to participate in its further destruction for the sake of having his name out there.

His return is called “Balls”, and the name is practically a dare to DJs to play the entire thing – a 10 minute epic with a breakdown that could strip the shell off a cockroach at 100 meters. I hope you take up the bet: “Balls” packs more energy into 10:14 than many DJs can conjure up in an entire set. There are three mixes: the Original, “No Synth” and “Synth Louder”. And that’s it. Stripped down, hard, unapologetically anti-commercial and true.

 

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