Review: Tom Demac - The Shuttle Awaits

Music

Tom Demac appears to have a golden touch at the moment. Having released forward-thinking singles on AUS and Glass Table, he’s back with his most ambitious and enjoyable release to date, The Shuttle Awaits on London house and techno label Hypercolour.

Minimal techno beats and a ringing loop (that sounds like it was lifted from Coldcut’s 1997 classic Space Journey) help to create the feeling of space. Not just that stuff that surrounds the planet Earth, but, you know, through their arrangement and position there appears to be a distance between them, thus creating an area where other elements and instruments can successfully fit without sounding like a claustrophobic wall of sound. And fill this space Tom Demac does.

Next to join the queue outside the shuttle boarding doors is a simple guitar run and some wordless vocals. Ethereal and lurid are the order of the day, as the both slowly shift and mutate before us, the track begins to ramp up the intensity. Gary McClure (him of Working For A Nuclear Free City and American Wrestlers fame) makes a cameo on vocals. Slowly they become decipherable through a heavy use of filtering and production trickery.

Classic Italian piano stabs, have been cross pollinated with the classic Manchester vibe that made New Order and Working For A Nuclear Free City records something to look forward to and be admired. Demac’s deftness of touch while producing makes The Shuttle Awaits a track that works not just on the dancefloor, but is perfect for home listening too.