- Jace Clayton, AKA DJ /rupture, isn't finished messing with your head by any means. But he's clearly looking for subtler ways to do it, if last year's Uproot and now Solar Life Raft, his new mix-CD collaboration with Dutty Artz production and DJ partner Matt Shadetek, are any indication. And having already whipped heads around with the breakneck Gold Teeth Thief (2001), Minesweeper Suite (2002), and Low Income Tomorrowland (2005), Clayton has nothing more to prove in the faster-and-harder sweepstakes. Besides, mapping out a world of sound, the /rupture m.o. from the word go, takes patience as well as skill and an ear for the raucous. Besides, who says they can't co-exist?
So Solar Life Raft stretches out—differently than the surprisingly languid Uproot, where large swathes (most obviously Jenny Jones' specially-composed string quartet drifting into Ekkehard Ehlers' "Plays John Cassavetes") were downright ethereal. Here, the nervous undercurrent riddling a cut like Pumajaw's "Buds (Various Production Remix)" is left to its own devices for a while, so that when /rupture and Shadetek sneak up and cut the curtain open with a blend of Timeblind's "Coltan & Cassiterite" and Shadetek's own "Nightshade," what's revealed is less a storm than an ominous sky. But while the "what-was-that?" moments may be less pronounced, but they're still there: When Shadetek's "Shield Dub" and Hildegard Westerkamp "Breathing Room" combination are replaced by the loud chime, human birdcalls and knife-edge strings of modern composer Nico Muhly's "Mothertongue: Pt. 1," it's as delicious a shock as Nas being batted out of the way by breakcore on Gold Teeth Thief.
Even the stuff that seems to sidle in rather than being dropped out of nowhere has a quietly interruptive quality. The vocal of Pulshar's lover's groove "Mr. Money Man" nudges into Mizz Beats' wispy tinkling lullabye "Blue Night" easily, but it's also clearly coming from a different place; ditto the dab of Luc Ferrari musique concrete that upends a pair of /rupture + Shadetek-produced tracks (their own "4th Story Waterline" and a Lion Dub and Shadetek remix of Jahdan Blakkamoore's "Long Road") in the middle. But this is a mix in which "a different place" is both the key and the point.
Tracklist 01a. Timeblind - Space Cadet
01b. Matt Shadetek - Strength In Numbers
02. Jahdan Blakkamoore - For The Souls
03a. Gang Gang Dance - Bebey (DJ /rupture & Matt Shadetek Remix)
03b. Cauto - Despertar
04. Paavoharju - Ursulan Uni
05a. Stagga - The Bad Dance
05b. Babylon System - Get On Up
06. Cardopusher - Green Disorder
07. DJ /rupture & Matt Shadetek - Underwater High Rise
08. Various Production - Buds (Remix)
09a. Timeblind - Coltan & Cassiterite
09b. Matt Shadetek - Nightshade
10. Caroline Bergvall - More Pets
11. Noah D & Roommate - Street Sound
12a. Matt Shadetek - Shield Dub
12b. Hildegard Westerkamp - Breathing Room
13. Nico Muhly - Mothertongue: Pt. 1
14. Mizz Beats - Blue Night
15. Pulshar - Mr. Money Man
16. Shackleton - In The Void (DJ /rupture Remix)
17. DJ /rupture & Matt Shadetek - 4th Story Waterline
18. Luc Ferrari - Archives Génétiquement Modifées Part 2
19. Jahdan Blakkamoore - Long Road (LionDub & Matt Shadetek Remix)
20a. Matty G - Layin' In Bed
20b. DJ /rupture - Overture: Watermelon City
20c. Lloop - Autumn Rains Until Those Of Spring
21. DJ /rupture - El Verdugo
22. Telepathe - In Your Line (DJ /Rupture & Matt Shadetek Remix)