Wonderful words by the ever erudite Adam Turner.

Pamela Records finally get around to releasing their second record, the first since Andrew Weatherall’s The Moton 5 back in 2020 – a four track vinyl E.P. that saw the light of day at the same time as the iconic DJ / producer sadly passed away. Copies began to arrive through letterboxes at the end of the week that Andrew died. Label founder, Dave Jarvis took his time getting to Pamela 002 but believe me it’s worth the wait. 

Produced by the very talented Jo Sims, who in the past has crossed swords, at various times, with both Acid Jazz and Gary Burns, of The Aloof and Weatherall’s Sabres Of Paradise, the new E.P. contains a quartet of head-spinning cinematic, synth-based psychedelia. The lead track, Bass: The Final Frontier, blasts off the launch pad with pulsating drums, set at mid-tempo chug, with an echo-laden voice intoning the title. The bassline buzzing, barging, to the fore as the fuel tanks are fully jettisoned. David Holmes provides a remix, one that lives long in the memory and pushes all kinds of buttons. Doubling the length of the original, Holmes sets the controls for the heart of a Sci Fi odyssey, sequencers and synthesizers firing in all directions, the bottom-end even buzzier. As vocal crashes in, and ricochets around, the track quite simply explodes. David adds layer upon layer, keeping the tension building, so that the song soars upwards, and onwards. It works in the car, it works on headphones, it works at home, it works in the pub / club – I used it to put the new sound system at Todmorden’s Golden Lion to the test recently as part of the warm up for Sean Johnston’s ALFOS.

Demons Of Dance is a shot in the same sonic vein, but ups the tempo and rumbles further toward the dancefloor’s dark shadows. Its modular stabs and oscillations possessing a definite air of menace. Jo’s closing missive, Mumbo Jumbo, pinches spoken word samples, concerned with “Witchcraft… “ Magick, religion, and “Spirits from another world” – and mixes these with a machined motorik beat. 

Jo Sims’ Bass: The Final Frontier is out on Friday, care of Pamela Records. You can preorder a copy at Juno and Phonica. 

You can find more proper, on point, prose from Adam Turner over at his own brilliant blog, The Bagging Area. Adam is also part of the admin team at the mighty Flightpath Estate.