steveisbroke

Today's compilation:

Two You See? 2000 IDM / Leftfield / Alternative Hip Hop

Alright, back on some electronic shit. Here we have a 12-inch sampler from a little, short-lived label out of the UK called deFocus, which was run by Clair Poulton, a woman who first cut her teeth at Aphex Twin's own Rephlex label before launching a label of her own called Clear; and then after Clear closed up shop, she started up this one.

So Two You See is a five-song showcase of the talent that deFocus was breeding at the time at the turn of the millennium. It's short, but it's largely centered around a very good strain of IDM—one that stresses melody through chiptune-y synth work and incorporates hints of electro too. But its first track, John Tejada's operatic "Genetical Love," is actually a pretty uniquely low-key alternative hip hop one that features rapping from abstract MC Divine Styler, and ultimately it shows that Clair Poulton's vision for this label definitely stretched beyond IDM; and perhaps that's why deFocus was called what it was in the first place 🤔.

But the IDM is where this record really happens to shine regardless, with three separate gems taking up its b-side. Adelaide, Australia's Tim Koch kills it on "Blat," a song that pairs some intertwined videogame melodies—one of which is emotively rubber-thick and reminiscent of subterranean trenches from Super Mario World—with a rhythmic bed that consists of a whole lot of handclaps; then London's Plus One comes through with "Sticker," a happy-go-lucky stroll through a rainbow-colored meadow that was written by him and produced by legendary IDM duo Plaid (who are themselves alums of Clear); and last, but certainly not least, is maybe deFocus' most coveted crown jewel of all, CiM. CiM's time spent on this release is entirely too short, but here he delivers "Ceramic," a sublime song with all sorts of rhythmically mechanical glitchiness laid over some supremely mellow pads 😌. This is a tune that causes you to feel the new, forward-looking frontier that was opening up for this kind of 'intelligent' electronic music back then, during a time when peoples' pie-in-the-sky prognostications for an internet-led future were so naïvely rosy in retrospect 😅. The previous two tunes on this comp that precede "Ceramic" are certainly quite good themselves, but this one in particular is really just on a whole different plane. CiM wasn't the only artist crafting this kind of stuff at the time, but for a label that, for the most part, appeared to be kicking around with an enjoyable retro kind of vibe, this guy seemed to be providing something of a counterbalance with this excellent song of his.

More of this type of stuff on deck. Sit tight 😎.

Highlights: