- If you're waiting for the inevitable breakdown, the rise, the fall, the money shot, you'll be waiting a long time with Andy Blake's new Cave Paintings project. The two tracks found on the label's initial release are Spartan affairs, stripped-to-the-bone DJ tools that explore the lengths to which you can play out a certain groove. Blake chooses good stuff: These tunes continue to nag long after they're done spinning; perfect blank canvases upon which Blake throws hi-hats, quick riffs, maybe even a digital bongo. Improvisation is key. The two untitled tracks sound as though they've been composed on the fly, subject to Blake's quick hand.
It's an aesthetic in dance music that hasn't been lost necessarily. Plenty of producers are using digital tools to give themselves the freedom to improvise. But with Blake involved, it seems as though this is very much "an important statement" about the world around him. Accidents don't happen in computers. (Or, when they do, they're quickly deleted or "fixed.") The rough edges are smoothed out. Cave Paintings, as the name implies, is about going back to something a bit more rudimentary to see what we might have missed the first time around. Don't call it nostalgia, call it exploratory.
Tracklist A Untitled
B Untitled