Formed round phrases taken from Rely Ossie’s legendary observe ‘Poem,’ Tom Neilan and Gareth Kirby ship up a haunting homage to the reggae innovator in minimal percussion and excessive stress bass weight.
“Within the stillness of the evening and the clamour of the day, Rely Ossie’s smart poetic phrases ring true in each single means. Lengthy dwell his legacy.” This homage opens the most recent undertaking from Alan Johnson, the dub-drenched alias of producers Tom Neilan and Gareth Kirby. Arriving in the identical yr because the fiftieth anniversary of Grounation, the ground-breaking album from Rely Ossie’s foundational group, The Mystic Revelation Of Rastafari, ‘Stillness’ serves as each timeless monument to and pressing invocation of the spirit of the legendary drummer, band chief and important determine to many Rastafari. Shaping lethal bass weight and minimal percussion round phrases taken from Ossie’s observe ‘Poem’, Neilan and Kirby hint the origins of their reverberant sound whereas providing a singular assertion of their very own, drawing from the deep properly of earth power tapped into by Ossie’s phrases. “It is a observe that originally got here collectively pretty shortly within the studio in Bristol, a while again in 2020, primarily as a result of the truth that it had clear course and robust narrative for us,” clarify the duo. “We predict visible illustration will be as robust in its impact on the senses as any audio output, in creating a wholly completely different dynamic in supply of an concept. Working with Liam Higgins on the visible facet of this undertaking actually supplied us with the flexibility to journey creatively alongside paths hardly ever travelled inside one of these music, from an audio visible perspective. Offering the chance to discover creativity instinctively and collaboratively on a visible stage inside a novel undertaking for each of us, we actually needed to ship one thing distinctive and private.”
“We had comparable interpretations on theme and it felt proper to take it to a moody, frantic at instances and finally paranoid, place,” they proceed. “We predict the hybrid course of each dwell and nonetheless photos works properly within the context of the musical message.” Snatches of shadowboxing set towards quick approaching nightfall, lonely rooms framed in black and crimson montage, monolithic residential buildings piercing dim skies, every eerie picture captures the swirling stress and creeping paranoia of ‘Stillness,’ steeped within the uneasy steadiness between dread stasis and sudden explosions of sound and motion. “Ever since I used to be a youth / I’ve all the time been trying to find the reality / However having been advised so many lies / Life, like good music, by no means dies,” intones Rely Ossie, directly prophetic and cautionary, a analysis of latest battle in addition to a gesture in the direction of a method of overcoming it. “A person is a sufferer of no imply order / I have to die at some point you’ll all hear individuals say / Storing up wealth, ignoring their well being / However a tree is thought by its fruits.” Directing us again to the earth, the bottom and the ability that resides in it, each Rely Ossie and Alan Johnson are aligned of their grasp of the bodily, Ossie in his magical realist proclamations, Neilan and Kirby within the heft of their deep bass excavations, the surge of smoke-filled air dashing from hulking sound system. Designed to be amplified loud in the dead of night, ‘Stillness’ zeroes in on the introspective efficiency of dubstep, illuminating inner caverns with their sound, permitting Rely Ossie’s phrases the area their weight calls for.
‘Stillness’ is taken from the EP of the identical identify, out now on Sneaker Social Membership. Yow will discover Alan Johnson on Instagram and Liam Higgins on Instagram and at his web site.
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