Sunset Review :: Night Slugs – ‘Allstars Volume 2’

February 14th 2013

For those who’ve not delved too deeply into electronic music before, listening to the most recent Night Slugs  compilation is something akin to a born-and-raised city boy slipping into a scuba suit and submerging himself in the depths of the ocean for the first time.

He discovers new shapes, new colours, new methods of movement, and even a whole new ecosystem down there.

In his life above ground, the only respite to be found from his city’s infinite rows of grey concrete towers was in the colourful advertising that was plastered on the sides of those towers. In terms of electronic music, it was an urban jungle populated by simple, functional and well-marketed products. But Night Slugs’ underwater universe… this came as something raw, untamed and entirely new.

To take in Helix’s sparse yet intensely driving ‘Drum Track’ in all its percussion-led glory, alongside Morri$’s hip hop based slow-jam ‘White Hood’ that uses a piano accordion sample as the main hook is always going to make you think. Girl Unit can make you cry, L-Vis 1990 can make you start a fight, and Bok Bok can make you shamelessly twerk. Eclectic is definitely the word if we’re talking genres, and the compilation is all the better for it. But if you want to slice things the other way and just classify it all as borderline ‘chinstrokey’ electronic music, then it can be put much more simply.

Every track exudes that Night Slugs vibe, and that is a damn good thing.

There’s a healthy combination of old and new tracks flitting around the package, but the extra effort that went into repurposing older tracks for the ever-changing musical climate is a special touch. Girl Unit’s ‘Double Take’ gets a ‘Part 2’, swapping incessant pounding percussion and lasers-in-a-vacuum type sound effects for a writhing but smooth soundscape. L-Vis 1990’s ‘Lost In Love’ gets almost the exact opposite treatment. The whole crew throws ideas in the ring for the ‘Street Mix’ of the track, which could only result in the original’s disco suaveness morphing into a growling shadow of its former self.

As luck would have it, Night Slug co-founders Bok Bok and L-Vis 1990 are on their way to our fine country at this very moment. They’re set to spin in five cities between the 15th and 23rd of this month, with Sydney’s lucky day landing on Friday February 22nd. They’ll be packing out Goodgod Small Club from 11pm, so if you think you can pull off the occasional chinstroke while you dance, get there.

Night Slugs ‘Allstars Volume 2’ is our Sunset Album of the Week: 8.2.13

 

Read more from Alessandro Dallarmi here.

 

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