Review: TMS – Fuck You, Pay Me/Slowmotion (Mora Music)

This is the second record from The Midlands based Mora Music to land on my mat in the last few months. The first one, A Lucid Dream by Nicuri, remains a quiet highlight of the year – a beautiful record that tripped into the depths but still hasn’t really had the reaction or praise I think it was due, especially Moments, a tune that invoked the shadowy spirit of Carl Craig in his early 90s pomp as well as giving a lesson in how depth and groove can and should work together for the benefit of the music. That review can be found here.

Leeds based (I think) TMS pushes beyond the reefs and into the true oceanic depths here with this début release. Although Fuck You, Pay Me may have the title of a slab of swaggering and vicious Techno, the tune itself opens in a deceptively dubby way but soon blossoms into a finely articulate journey of rhythm and frequency. Little touches weave through out the mix but its the big chords that hold the attention as they rattle the speakers alongside a groove that would be just as at home on a big room system. They also marshal the tune nicely, especially on the rare occasions it seems likely to become overly languid, adding a focus that moves the music from something slight and incidental into being a potent yet drifting builder.

It’s the B side, though, where TMS really hits out and gives us something special. Slowmotion (No Sleep Till) is the city night reflected in amber stained rainwater and rippled by the distant and uncaring traffic. The rattled opening builds imperceptibly, keeping the groove on a leash and at arm’s length. The claps that mark every fourth beat and the disconcerting swell of the pads serve to disguise the haunting and melancholic rise of the main riff that is both bleak and gorgeous. Momentum, though, is brought by the filtered, disembodied and indistinct vocal snippet that threads through the track, bringing with it a breath of humanity to the concrete midnight.

Bobby O’ Donnel’s remix of Slowmotion kicks the tune up a gear without losing sight of the adrenal slump vibe of the original. The beats are the hardest thing on the record, the rhythm paying homage to the aquatic peak time adventures of an era where one could expect nothing except the unexpected in a DJs set. It’s the sliver flare of a yawing 303 that makes the tune so special, though: hallucinatory and grandiose, like a spirit guide in a bandana and dirty dungarees. It captures the feel of time stopping at exactly the right moment – a snapshot of a party in the ruins of long-lost rave. Moody and nostalgic yet forward-looking and warming in the memory.

Whist there are interesting (but not always essential) things being done in Deep Techno these days, there is something to TMS’s work that suggests he is interested in more than following the Tin Man or Donato Dozzy’s of this world along their path. There is a bite and strut to the music that, although not always easily apparent, points to him being an artist as interested in the swagger of the groove as the swell of the synths. Good, because without one the other is just so much noise. Looking forward to see what he does next.

Nicuri: A Lucid Dream – Mora Music

The East coast of the United States has become a fertile breeding ground for all manner of electronic music over the course of the last few years. I imagine it always has been. In the past there can be little doubt that the sounds coming out of New York were overshadowed by Detroit and Chicago (even if those cities didn’t quite deserve the consistent adulation they received) and for most of us European sorts the concept of East Coast Techno probably meant Adam X and Frankie Bones, and their fierce take on the genre.

Nowadays it’s a little different. Much of the most interesting music currently working its way across the European underground probably started life in Long Island, or Brooklyn, or as with Nicuri here, New Jersey. And whilst the tones and aesthetics of the industrialized sound favoured by X and Bones are still to be found in a huge mass of contemporary New York Music to a greater or lesser extent, the New Jersey scene that came to prominence on this side of the pond due to the work of producers like DJ Qu, Jus Ed and Fred P has flourished with its deeper, House-ier vibe.

Nicuri first came to our attention over here with Ridindatneedle, a single track of low slung House on Strength Music’s Semesters EP in 2008. It was very nearly the stand out track on that release, and would have been by far the best thing on it had Semesters not also contained Joey Anderson’s incomparable Hypno-funk number Three Analysis. Since then Nicuri has turned up on other samplers but full releases seem to have been missing, with only one other EP to his name. Luckily, Mora Music have gone some way to redressing the balance.

A Lucid Dream is Deep House done the way God intended. Where so often Deep House ia a genre that seems to only exist for the In-Crowd to nod their heads to whilst awaiting service in one of those soulless clubs that pride themselves on their VIP areas, A Lucid Dream is the real thing. Ocean waves of Synths and reverb roll above the Abyssal depths, breaking over the reef like bassline that occasionally rises above the upper frequencies like the banks of a broken shore. There is much here that echoes what other members of the New Jersey crowd have done but feels fresher at the same time: the sign of a healthy scene.

Moments is the flip side to A Lucid Dreams aquatic trip. Crunching drums up-jack the tempo and the heat. More dance floor ready than the A side, it recalls some of DJ Qu’s more prowling tunes. The shuffling proto-acid line in particular carries the track upwards into the storm clouds gathering above the horizon. It never quite works itself up into a bona-fide mover of the modern sort, but that’s part of its strength and beauty. Nicuri is a man who seems to appreciate the how otherwise colossal sounds, shown here in his synths, can be tailored to something more introspective and haunting without ever letting it slip into something mawkish or showy. For all its gracefulness, Moments is an effective and functional bit of music, inhabiting that space where House and Techno collide and the mind, body and soul all work as one.