Still: Remains
STILL
REMAINS
PUBLIC GUILT
One third of metal-maelstrom Hip Hop combo Dalek, where he provides pyrotechnic performances as deranged as those of Yamatsuka Eye, Still sees himself as a turntablist with a difference. While not wanting to demean the craft of Qbert and DJ Disk, Still is keen to use his 1200s to create his own sonic palate. Rather than manipulating the tone arm in a staccato manner in moves such as the tear, flare, orbit, twiddle, crab, tweak or scribble to create rhythmic patterns, he instead goes in completely the opposite direction using the apparatus of the deck to seek out long ambient passages of sound, using amongst other source material tone arm feedback, background ambience picked up by the needle and cartridge at concerts as well as procuring static and scratches from vinyl though treating these sounds with effects pedals.
The process of assembling “Remains” was reputedly as long as two years, a result of Still’s practise of assembling the music; starting off by allowing the tape to spool on unrestrained before later painstakingly piecing together the (often more melodic) sections and adding overdubs. Still, like Dalek, has a quite startlingly catholic and surprisingly Rock-influenced set of influences for a Hip Hop producer, Lou Reed’s “Metal Machine Music”, Flying Saucer Attack, Merzbow and Tim Buckley all get the nod. The results of his approach are equally anomalous to the turntablist canon (notwithstanding the likes of Philip Jeck), which though remarkable for their deep textures are not dissimilar to The Aphex Twin’s “Selected Ambient Works Vol. 2”
While his approach is novel it’s difficult to discern how turntablism as a technique actually enriches “Remains”, who’s crackling vistas, though often lovely, could have been created in the black box of a hard disk. Thus there is a confusing yaw in the CDs execution, which slightly mars its integrity.