Good Morning Peckham will arrive on the London label at the end of the month.
The appeal of Vancouver’s Mood Hut umbrella crew to a post-Plastic People London landscape is a fairly understandable one. The running together of influences from jazz, ambient, broken-beat, and dub to create a kind of house-focused groove is close to an ideal for esoteric DJs, so no surprise that guys like Floating Points, Brian Not Brian or Ben UFO have been quick to rally their support for the cluster of musicians. The past couple of years has seen Peckham-based Boiler-Room man Bradley Zero similarly falling for their company and the charm too, with more than a handful of the Rhythm Section parties he runs featuring one artist or another from the orbit. Generally focusing on the performative ability of head Mood Hut man Jack Jutson or his group the Pender Street Steppers, but giving coverage to others too.
The Mood Hut affiliate will grace the fourth release from Bradley Zero’s Rhythm Section International label later this month.
The Rhythm Section man comes correct with an hour long mix filled with unreleased and exclusive material.
The recent release of Oceans Apart, a compilation put together by Cut Copy, documented the current strength of a music scene in Melbourne that’s been building for some time. It featured a veritable who’s who of Victorian talent, from Fantastic Man, Nike Delta and Bell Towers, to Michael Ozone, Andras & Oscar and Tornado Wallace, and whilst the absence of boogie revivalists Inkswel, Benny Badge and the rest of the Hot Shot Sounds crew was notable, this omission was balanced out by a range of tracks from little-known or previously unheard artists. There’s a suspicion – confirmed by this 12” on Bradley Zero’s Rhythm Section International imprint – that there’s even more previously untapped talent in the city just waiting to be unleashed.
For those of us who review music for a living, the laziness of both artists and labels can be a constant source of frustration. This is particularly true when it comes to the humble remix. So often an afterthought or a simple marketing exercise, the power of the remix has waned in recent years thanks to a combination of sound-alike versions, limp revisions and needless, big name tweaks. That’s not to say that inspired, next-level remixes aren’t being released – see Maxmillion Dunbar’s schizophrenic, juke-goes-jack revision of Adjowa’s synth-laden “Science of Soul”, or Cloudface’s inspired, pitched-down new age house take on Bantam Lions’ “Recollections” for recent examples – it’s just that they seem increasingly few and far between.
In this cynical age where nobody anywhere does anything new, ‘Successful club night launches record label’ is one of many well-worn narratives in music. However, there is plenty that’s compelling about this debut release from Bradley Zero’s Rhythm Section International. He may well be best known as one of the faces of Boiler Room, or a reluctant figurehead for lazy press features on the Peckham Is The New Cool campaign, but strip this away and you’ll come face to face with someone who possesses a real undying passion for music.
Crème Organization, Rhythm Section International, Mister Saturday Night and Live At Robert Johnson were among the labels that caught our eye in June.