New mini album from Hong Kong based trio Blood Wine Or Honey with remixes from Fancy Cat, Medlar, #Normal and Biggabush.
OVERVIEW: Following 2018's 'Brilliant Pebbles'—swiftly snapped up by Howie B's legendary Pussyfoot label for their much-lauded relaunch compilation 'Space is the Plaice'—Hong Kong trio Blood Wine or Honey return with TOMORROW; a spirited, gleamingly reflective and instantly engaging future classic. It arrives alongside a rash of remixes from the BWoH vaults, created by an idiosyncratic pack of veteran producers, underground mischief-makers and in-house tinkerers.
Loosely referencing Ian Dury's 'Reasons to be Cheerful Part 3', Herbie Flowers' slap-back picked bass, Ethiopic jazz abstractions and a certain Chow Yun-fat classic, TOMORROW is a rhythm-heavy, mantric tropical ritual dressed up in smooth city lights. Evoking super-bright LEDs drenched in monsoon madness and otherworld longing, the track's glacial cool melts into dance-floor heat with de-tuned drums, loved-up sax, big-mood vocals and dream-like synths.
Then there are the quartet of genre spanning remixes. There is ‘Undying Overrated (Biggabush remix)’ with Biggabush’s trademark dub-expressionism, giving the surreal lyrics space and pinpointing pops, echoes and off-beat piano before erupting into a heavy heavy dub-club future-stepper.?‘Orwellian Woman (Medlar remix)’ where Medlar creates a synchro-synth-clap deep disco abstract banger. In ‘Peak Helium IV (Fancy Cat remix)’ the enigmatic Fancy Cat recalls Moodymann's avant-house auras and Blake Baxter's techno spirit. ‘Tomorrow (#normal remix)’ has skewed vocal clips and shimmering atmospherics kick into huge drums, flipping the rhythm of the title track inside-out, along with bass weight and sampled snatches of vocal and sax refrain. And finally in ‘Loosefoot (#normal remix) the usually anthemic Loosefoot is transformed into a slow-burning spartan salutation with minimalist echoing percussion and vocal robotics, underscored by a reprise of the ruptured sub-bass of the original.?
Sometimes I think I've seen a better tomorrow
And when I see you
It makes me ask why in my dreams I'm falling
Away from tomorrow
Blood Wine or Honey is made up from seasoned multi-instrumentalists James Banbury (synths, bass, cello), Shane Aspegren (drums, synths, electronics) and Joseph von Hess (saxophone, percussion, winds). Together they create a witch’s brew of brazen sax themes, lo-fi/hi-tech electronics and motorik drums.