Moody - Ol' Dirty Vinyl

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  • A little more than a year ago, Seth Troxler bemoaned the number of dance records that are basically just "product"—several club tracks with DJ friendly intros and outros, and nothing to look at on the sleeve. It's safe to say that Kenny Dixon Jr. would agree with him on this point, especially in light of his latest EP; the lushly packaged Ol' Dirty Vinyl shows respect for the 12-inch as an art form. It's KDJ's third release as Moody so far, and like its predecessors—Anotha Black Sunday and Det.riot '67—it casually shrugs off the utility of the 12-inch format, mixing up free-form house tunes with musical sketches that drift between rock, jazz and the avant-garde. As its title suggests, the EP has a heavy-handed focus on vinyl itself: The title track begins with the sound of a needle slipping, followed by the crackling of a much older record. A dusty vocal hook drifts in from there, joined a moment later by organs, strings and disco arpeggios. It's a breezy house track, and perfectly mixable, although the meta-vinyl gimmick never completely leaves: added surface noise persists throughout, and a few times the levels drop abruptly and come back in. The rest of the A-side is fully experimental: "We Don't Care" layers vocals by Pitch Black City over an off-kilter jazz recording (kind of like "Soundcheck" from Anotha Black Sunday), and "No Feedback" is a warped rock tune with vocals by Mick Collins, a Detroit garage punk icon who used to sing for The Gories. According to the liner notes, the tune was "recorded live" at a Dirtbombs show (Collins' current band), but it's unclear how Moody edited the recording. The b-side delivers one of KDJ's poppiest tunes in recent memory: "It's 2 Late 4 U and Me," a long and vocal-heavy house track. This one seems to be getting the most club play out of anything on the record so far, and it's easy to see why: between the steady beat, walking bassline and extremely catchy vocal hook, it's definitely a tune you remember after a night out. The EP finishes up with "The Hacker," an undulating mess of static and miscellaneous noise that serves as the EP's outro. On its own, it's not worth much, but like its counterparts on the A-side, it complements the dancier tunes to give the record much more flare than the average 12-inch.
  • Tracklist
      A1 Ol' Dirty Vinyl (U Used To Know) A2 We Don't Care feat. Pitch Black City A3 No Feedback feat. Mick Collins B1 It's 2 Late 4 U And Me B2 The Hacker
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