Dusted Down: Directions – Echoes (Temporary Residence)

What Bundy did next

Four Tet fans might not be aware of Echoes, the album which the monumental producer said “changed (his) life”, and was described as “the blueprint for the Four Tet thing.” 

It can be difficult for prolific artists like Kieran Hebden – in his case, credited for pioneering ‘folktronica’ – to admit their own influences, especially if it reveals the fact that said innovations involved more ‘borrowing’ than meets the ear. But, amazingly, he did do just that, confessing to Gilles Peterson in a 2016 BBC 6 Music interview: “it’s basically where I got the idea for everything from…”

The schematic for Hebden’s rough sampling, twinkly arpeggios and spiritualized dance tropes existed long before his rise to fame. From the psychic breakbeats of San Francisco’s Hardkiss, to the refractive drones of Richard Horowitz and Jon Hassell, plenty of music saw it coming. 

But London-born producer, remixer and multi-instrumentalist Bundy Ken Brown, aka. Directions, is a less known example of his prototype. Formerly a member the bands Bastro and Tortoise, and a food critic by day, it would have been difficult to predict Brown’s fusion of spiritual jazz and sample pillaging, which he perhaps pulled off even more subtly than big names like DJ Shadow. 

Directions was a new venture for Brown. After leaving Tortoise, he met with 44 drummer Doug Scharin and guitarist James Warden to form the project in the mid ‘90s, beguiled by the potential space between prog jazz and downtempo. While active, it only saw limited success and grew tired, with Brown separating the project from the band in 1997. 

But miraculously, as though rejuvenated by a last breath, the last Directions album ‘Echoes’ – produced as a solo effort, and released on the UK label Soul Static Sound – became an unlikely, headsy favourite. Perhaps its appeal was prophesied. It’s hard to resist a strictly limited 12” packed with such blissful musical content, and that combination of rarity and rapture makes many a record seem priceless.

Now, ‘Echoes’ is available for the first time since its original release in 1997. A clear influence on Four Tet’s ‘Morning / Evening’, it includes the two original long form, side-spanning tracks – ‘The Continental Drift’ and ‘The Asymmetrical Excursion’ – and has been expanded to feature a nascent 1995 demo. This version also has a new remix on it by ‘90s Chicago DJ crew Deadly Dragons, of whom Brown is a member.

To the untrained ear, the ‘Echoes’ versions might sound like Nujabes parrotings. But at nine and seven minutes long respectively, there’s an all-present, Coltranean ghost in these songs that can only be picked up by sustained listens. Meditate on them: get past a few beat rotations on the first track, and you’ll make out bell sparklings, sitar flarings, and extra high-end tones on the bass riff. This track occurs in 3 sections, all of which are different takes on the same subdued spiritual backroad.

Track 2 contains a saxophone, and with that bold use of jazz’s quintessential instrument, a higher energy emerges. This time, the music sounds like a giant moving apparatus, a village on wheels. It creaks and clunks along as its people peacefully fuel its movement. Drum sounds and ambiences are occasionally reversed in post, like a rare reminder of the tension and potentiality in an otherwise peaceful soundscape.

At first, Deadly Dragons’ remix scarcely sounds separate from the original tracks. But at an indeterminate point near the start, the woodblocky hip hop beat we’ve grown used to over the past three tracks gives way. We’re suddenly transported to a dense, sloshing thicket of impressionistic, reversing drums. This barrage of sound isn’t unlike what we imagine a jazz musician might hear at the end of life, as their entire depth of experience flashes before their eyes equanimously. Or if you’ll indulge the comparison, it rather sounds like someone fast-rewinding and skipping through the ‘Echoes’ original using a faulty tape player, and enjoying the happy accident that hears back. 

Masterfully executed by Brown, and after nearly 25 years, this is the kind of follow-up remix we could only dream of. Yes, pioneering artists have their own muses – and with this release, we’ve unearthed yet another link in the chain. Like Four Tet, perhaps this new material could spur the career of yet another genre-defining artist soon to come?

Jude Iago James

The anniversary edition of Echoes by Directions is out on September 3 – pre-order your vinyl album or limited transparent orange vinyl LP now…