Interlude

An old favorite from many years ago, which I frequently used as an obscure, mysterioso jawn on mixtapes (yes -- tapes) back in the late 1980s. In which case, the track always made for either an ideal pace-changer or mood-setter.

Was smitten by many aspects of it back then. The lumbering, subaquatic pacing. Its multilayered yet elusive atmospherics -- the more overt parts of it being the 'thunk' of what sounds like someone knocking over a microphone stand, the keyboards lurching at one point in a way that sounds like tape-drag. And the sound of an ambulance arriving and departing as heard from two city blocks away, heard while the last traces of a thunderstorm drip from a dozen storeys of overhead fire escapes, creating rippled in the huge oily puddles that have collected in the streets, ripples which in turn reflect the window lights and night sky overhead, the air hanging thick all around. Or maybe something else entirely, impression-wise, depending on what it might summon from one person to the next (or whatever substance might be involved, or etc.). But mainly it the bassline and the drums on the thing what got me; the methodical slowness of the two, washed down in heavy reverb in a way that suggests a roots-rocker dub aesthetic. Which is pretty curious, seeing how this one was recorded in 1967. Almost 'illbient' some two-and-a-half decades before the fact.

At any rate, can't believe that I'd completely forgotten about it somewhere along the way, some 15 years or so ago. Thanks due to Knez of Egoslavia for including it in a recent post and reminding me of it.