A few dates ago, I was watching a tremendous TV series about an Irish family, the Kinsella’s (the title of the series is Kin), with, let’s say, shady business dealings that make them rich. One of the first things that caught my attention was the incredible music, with a quite personal stamp, which made me suspect who the author was going to be.
When the credits rolled, my suspicions were confirmed. Magnificent works like this were stealing the author from our usual musical universe, in which he has been very prolific. Fortunately, it seems that since the end of last year, he is once again giving us tremendous records.
We are talking about a DJ / producer / musician / composer who doesn’t need much introduction. The youngest of ten siblings from a Belfast family who started collecting records in the eighties and DJing in the mid-eighties, he is one of those rare artists we have on our altar, on the altar of those who have marked the history of electronic music.
David Holmes has been in the underground scene since the late eighties and the beginning of the following decade, where, apart from DJing in his homeland and in the UK, he wrote about music and worked as a promoter in his region.
We have already told, for example, that anecdote referred to by the Hartnolls (Orbital) explaining why that generational anthem created by them is called Belfast, and Holmes had something to do with it.
And from those days to composing soundtracks for films such as the Ocean’s trilogy (Ocean’s Eleven, Ocean’s Twelve and Ocean’s Thirteen) or series that have been huge hits, such as London Spy, The Fall or Killing Eve. This is not surprising, since from the very beginning, from his first releases, Holmes’ music has always had that cinematic component, being an expert in creating truly descriptive soundscapes.
We could spend hours talking about his career. But let’s turn to David’s long-awaited return to the normative recording scene, and specifically to his latest EP. In February It’s Over, If We Run Out Of Love arrived with the collaboration of vocalist Raven Violet. The beautiful title perfectly describes the track, an emotional tear with epic overtones and a dirty, Lo Fi sound in the style of his beloved and much-missed Andrew Weatherall.
Now he brings us six remixes of the original to the general delight. Starting the party with another legendary DJ and producer who we miss and who always remixes with mastery. Darren Emerson gives the original a classic groove, cleans up the sound and adds flanger and cadence in his Huffa Remix. For the next two remixes we travel to the US with Lovefingers and Heidi Lawden, who deliver the High Tide Mix first with a hypnotic repertoire of beats, percussion and pads in which the voice of Raven Violet appears almost ghostly. The Low Tide Mix follows, with a great inspiration from The Guv’nor, as in those remixes of theirs with two versions, fast and another in almost Dub mode.
The fourth remix comes from Yorkshire by one of the most emerging electronic punks of recent times. Working Men’s Club gut and reconstruct the original as they please with a tremendous, surprising and highly danceable result.
Finally, the last two remixes once again bring Weatherall to mind, as their author is Sean Johnston under his alias Hardway Bros. A legendary veteran of the British underground, guilty alongside Weatherall of that legendary North London residency called A Love From Outer Space, he closes this EP with two brilliant interpretations of the original modulated for the dancefloor.
Available here
