Sounds From The Ground - Mosaic

CD
8
Circle and Star

Details

Upstream Records is SFTGs own label, set up originally to release Mosaic and Kin in 1999. The label is now actively re-releasing their back catalogue as well as new product in cd and digital format.UK duo Elliot Morgan Jones and Nick Woolfson make some of the most stunningly rich, dynamic, bass-heavy downtempo instrumentals on the planet. They are pioneers of ambient dub, an exotic style first championed by defunct UK label Beyond Records and then picked up and continued to this day by North American label Waveform.Although dub in its original form is the tripped-out instrumental flipside of reggae, there is quite often no overtly Jamaican flavour to Jones and Woolfsons work. The dub element is more in the recording techniques (looping, echo, etc) and lovingly produced basslines that rumble, slide and snake their way around the room with enormous presence. Neither is the duos take on dub the minimalist approach of modern purists. They concoct soulful, exotic and tuneful widescreen panoramas, wound together with muscular rhythms and big, crisp drum loops that sometimes have a tribal or ethnic edge. Rhythmic downtempo from the psychedelic trance scene owes quite lot to these guys; listen and learn.Sounds From The Ground dont really belong to any decade or period save an electronic one. Their albums still sound as vital as the day they were released. Any sounds the duo took in from clubland or other circles over the years seems to have been readily absorbed into their arsenal to be used as needed, not because they were trendy at a particular time.