ummagma

Now here’s a strange thing, an album featuring one core song rephrased, remodelled and rewired through a series of sonic stylising by an invited array of guest remixes. Third album from dream popping duo Ummagma should mark a new navigatory pathway for what on paper already seems like a busy year ahead immersed in remix / collaborative projects with the likes of Robin Guthrie, lights that change, sounds of sputnik, Graingerboy and more besides. Unusual by most standards, ’Lama’ isn’t so much your standard album but rather more a loosely associated concept set in that the continual theme running throughout is the cut ’Lama’ – what that doesn’t tell you however is that aside it forging alliances across the generic divides it hitherto reveals the ever widening spectrum of the Ummagma sound. The set opens with the original mix of ‘Lama’ a gorgeously smouldering softly unfurling indie gem stone purred to the spectral entwining of Musetta and Dubstar dialects and traced with the silken caress of cosmic baubles whose trajectory shifts mid way through into ROC territories wherein all is elevated to a wide screen aspect that sees the cool control of Shauna’s lost in the moment disco raptures sharply contrasting with the fracturing underpin of Alexander’s riff work. Sounds of Sputnik are the first to step up to the plate and service ’Lama’ in thunderous beat driven cosmic hyper drive dinked in shimmering reverbs and swooned in lovelorn signatures. Mind Movies take matters in a total different direction applying some nifty lunar funk footwork to the floorshow replete with Stereolab noodles before shape shifting into a sepia skinned spectral hymnal perfect for lights dimmed sophistication. First of two visits for A Copycat who retune things back to reset and wire to it a buzz sawing motorik underpin schooled in 80’s pop cinematics only to return later to remodel the remodel and spray it in affectionate lovelorn flurries. Theatre of Delays serve up one of the sets cornerstone moments stripping the original template bare and sprinkling it in a twinkling flotilla of fortdax charms that falls headlong into the seductive trip hop down tempo folds of the minimalist murmurs of the Alexander robotnik revamp. Softly arresting proceedings go nogo’s breaking the camel’s back edit dinks matters in the delightful canter of shuffling oriental motifs flashed through in Balearic afterglows while the irregular disco workers acid feel retuning pretty much dispenses with the script all together before remembering its remit and trip wiring a smidgeon of the mosaics into the mix before putting on their dancing shoes and getting off to get down in Studio 54 land only to return later still having forgotten the charge they’ve been put to task with and going all mirror ball discoid mind tripping and house-y on your ass.