I somehow managed to forget about this album and recently rediscovered it – and in rediscovering it feel flabbergasted that I ever managed to forget I had it.
I’ve been playing it so often the past few weeks that I felt obligated to re-share it with the wider world in the hope that some others might either discover the same joy I experienced the first time I heard it, or simply be reminded of it, and enjoy revisiting it in the same way I have.
Listening to this album reminds me heavily of the first time I ever heard Rhythm & Sound’s classic “See Mi Yah”. The album finished and I was left in a state of hypnotised bliss, disbelieving that the experience was finished and desperately wanting to re-enter that state.
This album by Stephen Hitchell, on the legendary Echospace label, reaches those heights. At first it may seem deceptively simple, but as you let yourself be drawn in and immersed in this world, it has the same warm, immersive, and hypnotic feeling as those genre-defining Rhythm and Sound records – and at times I would say, transcends it.
The addition of Paul St. Hilaire’s vocals on Angel Version and Little Angel could not be better placed, and leave me with a feeling that I can only describe as spiritual (not a word I would use very often). Bliss, transcendence, spiritual – how funny it sounds to be writing using these adjectives, but I can’t think of a better description.
There’s something within this music that feeds the soul and warms the heart, and makes me feel hope and optimism. And whilst many of the tracks are underpinned with a straight 4/4 kick, the rhythmical play going on is continuously inventive and intriguing, ensuring you never feel that things are repetitive despite their innately hypnotic nature.
In the genre that is dub techno, I usually find myself revering Rod Modell the most, but I think Hitchell has surpassed him in this record, and created an absolutely timeless classic.
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