Artist: Reverse Commuter
Title: The Direction
Label: Hallucination Limited
By: Chloe Harris | 13 September 2003
Tracklist:

• A1: The Direction (Vox Mix)
• A2: Dongle Solitaire
• B1: Redirection (Dubloner Mix)
• B2: Untouchable

Reverse Commuter "The Direction"

Ken Gibson is a long-standing figure in California’s electronic scene. He’s been pushing limits for ages with his deep and weird productions as Eight Frozen Modules, to his dubby sounds of DubLoner. A great blend of tunes on this amazing ep. IDM styled textures and edits, danceable beats, along with nice layers of sound. Tarryn Westbrook lends her slight voice to his songs and intermixes with the beats perfectly.

‘The Direction’ opens with nice electronic piano stabs. A super low bouncy bassline comes in; it’s very thick and heads right into some electronic break beats. There are strange sounds swimming above, as layers of melody rolls in. Tarryn’s voice makes its way in. Beautiful but strange, she caresses the sounds. The drums change often, and have many quick edits and backward parts that change consistently. The beat changes up a bit into a 4/4-kick pattern then lets loose again into those electronic drums. A very nice hip-hop styled tune.

‘Dongle Solitaire’ starts in with a nice filtered sound. Heavy breaks are quick to follow. There’s a very big crunchy effect on the whole song, while bell tones chime in the mix. The bell sound is twisted and weird but has a nice soothing melody. Little lazer zap sounds fly up and down, and play with your head. It’s mental and changes into a very minimal break beat with a bouncy bassline. High hats come back in and some more crazy drum editing takes way. Some samples lay in the mix, as the original sounds come back in layers.

As DubLoner, Ken uses his dub sounds to their fullest potential. ‘Re:Directed (DubLoner mix)’ is a brilliant dubby, deep tech house vibed tune. A nice delayed chord progression starts rolling in. Electronic sounds start dropping into the chords, as the house beat kicks in. Tarryn’s voice rings in delayed and sounding sweet. The bassline is groovy house with a feel good vibe. Claps come in with some nice delayed effects. There’s a glitchy ambience throughout the whole backdrop. Electronic sounds creep in and go mental once again. The ending is a beautiful meltdown of sounds that come to a slow halt. This song is a new style of dub and has some of the finest sounds around.

The ‘Untouchable Dub’ has the twisted sounds reminiscent of Tipper. Hard electro zaps come in with drums from another planet. They are twisted and fierce and move so perfectly in and out of time. Crazy effects rush in, along with some falling chord stabs. Robotic sounds take over the whole song and pull it gently into Tarryn’s sampled cut up mechanical voice. There are tons of strange edits and parts, and it’s very electronic. We float heavily into a hoppy beat pattern that seems to bounce off of its self. A warbley tone that is fuzzed out takes us deeper into the mellow break beat. A brilliant mix for those who like it electro and weird.

Hallucination have outdone themselves with this release. There’s so much going for this debut. There are so many different sounds; you should be able to find something that works for you. Ken Gibson has brilliant production techniques and amazing sounds, and this is only the tip of the iceberg. Prepare yourself for a whole album by Ken soon enough.