Call To Mind

Call To Mind

Commix [Metalheadz]

5 December, 2007 | 4.49PM

• Section: Music Recommendations
• Written by: The Last Real DJ Alive

Listen to this album once and you’ll be asking yourself the question, “How did Commix do it?”

This is because ‘Call To Mind’ is one of the most powerfully original, instantly appealing and diverse drum ‘n’ bass albums ever created.

It’s hard to see where it came from.

One minute Commix were steadily building up their rep as a catchy, leftfield D&B act, and the next they drop this audio bomb on the industry.

Everything kicks off with ‘Be True’ and this is an obvious sign of things to come.

Flawless production including heavenly string arrangements feature, along with looped, filtered vocals, a smorgasbord of instrumental activity and a Reece bassline seemingly from Ray Keith’s ‘Terrorist’ itself.

What really makes the track tick though is its soft vocal loops – they’re enough to make you cream with pleasure.

‘Belleview’ is a frighteningly original track inspired by Detroit techno – a genre that other drum & bass producers wouldn’t dare to experiment with.

Single-handedly, we at Beatportal feel that Commix have created a new sub genre of drum & bass with this track.

Tech ‘n’ bass anyone? We shit you not.

The other D&B tracks that really stand out on ‘Call To Mind’ are ‘Strange’ featuring the Nextmen and ‘How You Gonna Feel’ with Steve Spacek.

‘Change’ harks back to the disgusting dark tracks of 1999 that built up with hyped, syncopated beats then proceeded to bludgeon you with heavy walls of sound.

This comes across like a track off Ed Rush and Optical’s ‘Wormhole’ LP, with computer bleeps and flawless DJ Premier-style scratches thrown in for good measure.

‘How You Gonna Feel’ on the other hand is a seminal liquid D&B tune compiled with layers of warm, reversed instruments, badass compressed beats and an ethereal male vocal.

You can’t not like the drop with it’s big, bumbling bassline in the mode of Calibre’s sleeper hit ‘Neighbourhood’.

If all this wasn’t enough, ‘Call To Mind’ complements itself with a refreshing mix of different genres.

For example, on one hand you have the Detroit techno-styled Underground Resistance mix of ‘Satellite’, which is sumptuous on so many levels.

‘Special (Derek)’ is a tasty slice of 125BPM house that works as a nice backdrop to pulling birds and then you have the blistering ‘Burn Out (Fade Away)’ – a new-age trip-hop masterpiece, fused with techno funk.

What else can be said?

That ‘Call To Mind’ is the album the drum & bass scene has been crying out for in the last three years.

Without a doubt, this is going to be a tough album for any drum & bass act to follow in the next five years.

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