Description
Ode To Lunch” too deals in loose lilting jazz tones draped over the rugged drum patterns, although here the array of sounds drift in and out of the mix to create a swirling quality, approximating the first light on a Sunday morning breaching the gap in the curtains at the after party. The beats that prop up this mellifluous blend serve a simple role, providing a place marker for the dusty tones to float in a mix, but they still punch with that Apron grit (I could at this point generalize and pin it on AKAI sampling but I can’t be certain that an MPC was used in the making of this record).
“Westdown Road” and “Cranbourne Road”, the A2 and B2 respectively on this release, deal in a much tougher, club-centric message. These slabs of primal techno fire off short, squelchy, alien sounds with a passionless demeanour that sits in stark opposition to the wistful romance of “Ode To Lunch”. They’re far from dry though, whether it be the unexpected acid injection at the end of “Westdown Road” or the nerve-wracking swell of low end on “Cranbourne Road”. They may lack the ear-snagging personality of the more melodic tracks, but they’re fine floor-focused efforts all the same.
After all, Apron has never sought to be an avant-garde, frontier-facing label. It does indeed sometimes serve up some challenging material, but the priority is always on immediacy, vibrancy and that all-encompassing grit. It’s plain to hear that Shamos has that spirit running through his bones on this record.
