Melchior, Dan – “Slow Down Tiger” – [Starlight Furniture Co.]

mickeyslim   5/7/2014   12-inch, A Library

Hypnotic ambientness and extrodinary sampling on this, Dan Melchior’s latest solo release.

Starts off with a lulling, hypnotic synth in the backround as an organ pattern gets layered over it. Sounds like a haunted shipyard at midnight, or in the distance howling in a graveyard.

Spoken samples are woven through the whole A-side: field recordings of the 1990 poll tax riots in London, Chilean poet Nicanor Parra; a clip from Sult, the Swedish film based on Knut Hamsun???s Hunger; Russian absurdist/surrealist Daniil Kharms; Jesuit priest Gerard Manley Hopkins; author of modernist masterpiece Briggflatts Basil Bunting; the eternally disenchanted Alan Dugan; and John Betjeman. The side ends with multiple layers of random beats falling in and out of sync, I could hear a heart rate monitor and a phone ringing, with other electronics I’m sure.

B-side was almost just an psyched-out instrumental drone version of the A-side. Almost makes you fall asleep, but keeps you attentive, could very well be used as a mixing tool. Get into this, many people will dig..