Return To Bass [LP]

Craig Bratley - Return To Bass [LP]

Craig Bratley’s sophomore album, “Return To Bass”, has been a long-time gestating. His debut was in 2014 and 12 years later here he is again. In that time, he’s gathered a good deal of experience, released several musically varied 12-inches, as well as having Andrew Weatherall remix a few of his efforts. Bratley has spent the last few years honing his musical and technical skills which are evident on this album, as are his influences, which can be heard on his impressively consistent back catalog, include Italo-disco, British electropop, acid house, and a slowed down version of Chicago house that lends it a heroin crawl. Added to that, though, is the dub reggae sound championed by King Tubby, Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry, and our own Dennis Bovell, which is much in evidence on this set.
It seems apposite, in the wake of the death of Sly Dunbar (and, less recently, his partner, Robbie Shakespeare) that Craig’s album is now appearing, since Bratley’s sound is imbued with a dub sensibility and the engine of the whole set is built around the thud that Sly & Robbie brought to their greatest productions; the song titles are clues: ‘Plasticine Dub’, ‘Return To Bass’ and ‘No In Between Dub’.
The strangely eastern sounding keys that announce the arrival of ‘Plasticine Dub’; we were half-expecting a snake to rise out of a basket somewhere just south of the Pyramids, before Ola’s elevating vocal add to the pyre. It’s almost redolent of that great dub assassin, Mr. Jah Wobble, who’d be proud of this sturdy sonic edifice. ‘Return To Bass’ is built around a loping hip hop style beat but vulcanized by the presence of a warping TB-303 line, and aided considerably by music maven Tim Hutton on a funereally emotional trumpet. ‘No In Between Dub’ originally came out on Magic Feet in 2021 and utilizes the powerful voice of Amy Douglas, abstracted and delayed to perfection here. While ‘Ahnedonia’ with its portentous minor chord builds, sounds like a funeral march for Darth Vader. All this comes together most powerfully on the centerpiece of the album, ‘Everybody Pushing’, with its brilliant Madchester-adjacent vocal by DJ and producer Thomas Gandey. It’s built around some domineering pads and enforced by a piano line. Although it clocks in around the 100 bpm, it feels much livelier than the tempo suggests, thanks to deftly programmed drums that are suitably hectic. ’S.A.W.’ utilizes a classic Italo-disco bassline, girded with offbeat reggae chords and a rising TB-303 (the nearest thing this album has to a theme is the trusty Roland bassline provider). On ‘Thanks For All The Fish’ (appropriately named, since Bratley is a Grimsby boy), the nearest to a house-style floorfiller with its Moroder-esque drive and gear changes, he brings a peak-hour sensibility to what is emphatically more suited to the delights of the warm-up. The album closes out with a return to the scene of its biggest moment, with a reprise of ‘Everybody Pushing’, sans drums, bass, and vox, a gloriously trance-like procession to the needle run out. Suitably triumphal.
Tracklisting:
A1. Plasticine Dub
A2. Return to Bass
A3. No In Between (feat. Amy Douglas)
A4. Ahnedonia
B1. Everybody Pushing (feat. Thomas Gandey)
B2. S.A.W.
B3. Thanks For All The Fish
B4. Everybody Pushing (Reprise)