The Long Goodbye is the soundtrack for Dexter if Dexter had been for real, and not some quirky sitcom about the pros and cons of living a secret life as a psycho-killer in sunny Miami. Think instead of an apres garde symphony for that classic moment when Michael Mann brings out the knives. Hypnagogic vision of a perfect skyline of pastels and neon rising over the sea like the pulsating temple of a binary religion, or frozen stalagmites at the summit of an iceberg where a race of shadowy creatures dwells, the precise lines bounding gradients that shouldn’t exist warp with every ominous palpitation of the guitar drone, it’s all Marina Drive thrills in a composition throbbing like the severed femoral artery of Guido the Killer Pimp, expanding like blood on water as the sharks approach.

Melanie Houston- The Long Goodbye

We know next to nothing of Melanie Houston. You can find the Long Goodbye in a brilliant 12” ‘Somewhere Out on the Nightside’ comp released by Cyber Dance, also featuring Brassica and Serious Lover. Grab a copy here.

Some vectors of Dubstep have in recent times converged towards a forbidden zone of Carpenterian iciness, all of this for the delight of yours truly. Just check out Martyn’s Hear Me as remixed by Zomby, Ikonika’s Sahara Michael, Benga’s Mpho remix or even Joker & Ginz’s Purple City. Madden’s Olcadan slips into this twilight space from the opposite direction, i.e., the progressive realm inhabited by such darkly beasts as Zombi, Gatekeeper or Venture. The emphasis here is not so much on bass murder and geometric pow pow, but on the detached ecstasy that accompanies the ascension of eerie mountains of madness pulled by the invisible arms of a dead maiden. Mix both up and see what happens.

Madden- Olcadan

Blissed Out got in touch about this joint recorded live late night at market hotel, describing it as ‘the Neptunes if they were trying to make dark wave’. Now that’s the sort of intersection that makes the inhabitants of this house salivate like underground culture pumped negatives of Pavlov’s unfortunate dogs.

It is indeed a thing of wonder this, a warbled transmission that has crossed chasms of space and time from a land of shadows and echo where long extinct tribes continue celebrating their timeless acid house rituals. Think of a collection of found photos from a trip to the Caribbean projected at stroboscopic speeds against the wall of your bedroom, snapshots of tourist destinations rapidly giving way to blurry pictures of beach bonfires and grainy ectoplasms floating in the night, pink and smiling tourist faces smudged like Sadako’s future victims in Ringu. This is the sound with which everything vanishes as you reach the end of the reel.

Blissed Out- Tropical Fantasy Edit

This is but the harbinger of very awesome things to come, watch this space.

and harbinger of very awesome things to come.

Epilogue -
This post is tagged with prog