Friday 4 June 2010

RLF - 'One Upon A Time EP' (Rex Records, 2002)

Choke's review of a great little EP by RLF, now known as Bass Clef. Back then Ralf was a familiar face on Bristol’s underground scene, before moving to London and releasing the critically acclaimed album ‘A Smile Is A Curve That Straightens Most Things’.





















In between working the crowd at leftfield club nights and providing soundtracks for Japanese monster flicks, RLF has found time to commit his misanthropic vision to vinyl. "Once Upon A Time" is funky enough for the dancefloor, but darkly inventive enough to have musos dribbling over their record bags. At a time when abstract electronica seems determined to retreat ever further into joyless Glitch-Techno orthodoxy, a record like this stands out like tits at a funeral.

RLF is otherwise known as Ralf: the big-haired, beefy, bearded geezer often seen behind the counter at Imperial Music. Whether the long hours spent hanging out at Bristol's foremost emporium of the eclectic have rubbed off on his music or not is a matter of idle speculation. Either way, with everything from towering techno to the darkest of dub thrown into the mix, RLF's anything but a purist. If Sabres of Paradise, Roy Ayers and Joey Beltram got together… Well, it would probably be a musical disaster of the most embarrassing kind, but you get the general idea.

"Who's Afraid" (best played extremely loud) is a hair-raising onslaught of flesh-eating acid, as if a long-spurned rave anthem had returned hell-bent on murder. "The Bassline That Destroyed The World" is a concoction of eerie samples and dancehall beats nailed down by a B-line from hell. Even the mostly chummy "Bass Too Rude", all summery chords and cheesy percussion, is slightly creepy: the Big Beat equivalent of a Stepford Wife. With mainstream club culture heading straight for the School Disco and the experimental fringe as inaccessible as ever, RLF takes the middle ground and makes it his own.

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