Nightmares On Wax
In A Space Outta Sound

The Return of Mr. Evelyn

I played "Carboot Soul" a bit, a few nights ago.

As the speakers let deep or liquid sounds spread in my overcrowded den, expertly assembled, waiting for the glide, between two wings of strings, of a seductive voice, I thought that perhaps a mention on DeB of that album wouldn't be a bad idea.

I had missed the 2002 episode ("Mind Elevation"). And Carboot Soul, from '99, had been the last meeting opportunity with George Evelyn.

With him and his lacquer nightmare.

I wondered what had happened to him.

The answer came today, with "In A Space Outta Sound".

George Evelyn, Mr. Nightmare on Wax, has talent. He doesn't chase trajectories dictated by yet another new declension of electronic sound, he isn't afraid to sound dated. Even though his production is entirely within the Warp catalog, the little spot he reserved for himself, very cozy, is completely personal.


He has further refined his taste and his undoubtedly relaxed ability to make records with a recognizable brand.

But this time he broadened the spectrum of suggestions: this record also plays R&B. And soul, but that’s not new. You hear a bit of Motown, an echo, and then you slip into his personal version of lounge which, excuse me for insisting, is of a different fabric compared to the faded shirts draping throngs of "colleagues" blessed by cocktail bars.

If in "Smokers Delight" ('95), the second album with which many came to know him, he promised in the title something that the listening experience could maintain, especially in the "expansion" of space and its floating saturation based on dub and trip-hop flakes, here it seems to meet him upon returning from a dive into the past.

And he is absolutely happy to zigzag, once resurfaced, among the infinity of materials that can be drawn from down there.

Oh, sure, it's no surprise. It won't ferry your sensitivity to splendid and unheard-of scenarios. It will merely accompany you on a pleasant walk (which at times turns into a dancing excursion) rich with small variable frames. Sentimental in its way. But traversed by a constant pulse, even when the landscape becomes more subdued, behind the veil of some slight digital mist or among the notes of "vintage" keyboards. A calypso winks too, and among the lush vegetation rich with samples through which we venture, Caribbean or African-toned percussions echo on more than one occasion.

What else to add? That in "In A Space Outta Sound" jazzy attitudes remain, that dub continues to be a basic ingredient in some of his downtempo recipes? Or that perhaps some lover of the small incessant "revolutions" in the micro-macro world of electronic sound will snub it, probably rightly so? That to me instead it immediately appeared as a successful, rather simple blend, especially in the rhythmic foundations, but varied, multifaceted, fluid, and I invite you to taste it even without having provided for some more, measured, listening?

Well, I add that the voices chosen by Mr. Evelyn to sing the words of "In A Space Outta Sound" seem to have made the dive with him into the vast backroom of already heard sounds.

But they leap, or stretch languidly, perfectly at ease in this spring of 2006.