MEANS OF PRODUCTION – THE DEPTHS (no label)
Means of Production’s first two EPs are all steady
forward propulsion and glaring intensity, like taking Model 500’s night drive
down an endless underpass on a hospital gurney, staring up at the strip
lights. On. Off.
On . Off. “The Depths” is different, having a greater
feeling of space, with the individual notes as discrete events, tiny
self-contained dots of digital sound, which hover around you like a pointillist
mist. The vocals are also a development,
Tim Day having put aside the wounded elk OMD yelp of Space Heroes Of The People
for a flat and understated intonation (think luke-warm leatherette), which
perfectly suits the lyrics’ impersonal Ballardian cataclysm of landslides and
“inescapable fluorescence”. The track
builds to a wonderful TARDIS materialisation swirl, leaving you uncertain quite
what this cyber-oracle is warning about, but eager to hear more. The depths?
We’ve barely scratched the surface.
Tiger Mendoza’s remix brings out the track’s melodic
core, adding a tiny cuddle of harmonisation to the vocals, making them inviting
and perhaps even comforting (heart-warming leatherette), and placing them over
a sassy strut of a rhythm. Even here,
though, the friendly aura is dispersed when the phrase “she has gone into the
sea” is repeated with the travel-sick wobble of worn out tape (and how we’re
looking forward to Walkman-wielding hipsters discovering that little sonic treat
in a few years). Fred Ugly’s remix is
simpler, a chunk of colourful, handmade, slapdash fun, like spending a drunken
hour running on airport travelators, which lightens the mood, and yet, in its
own way, also has an inherent queasiness.
Any tips for getting vomit stains out of this leatherette?
