Straight from the outer-regions of the Universe, Space Dimension Controller is our one to watch this week.
Every once in a while you hear a piece of music that makes you stop dead in your tracks, drop everything you're doing and listen slack jawed as a song becomes your entire world for a couple of minutes. Ask me the last time this happened and it won't take me a millisecond to remember: I was in Phonica Records, Soho, and the tune was Space Dimension Controller – The Love Quadrant. Rarely do I have such genuine excitement about a DJ or producer as I do with the Belfast native known to his mum as Jack Hammill.
The spacey-electro funk had me hooked from the start. Cosmic disco is sometimes rightly criticized for being far too aloof, but on tracks like 'Cosmo30 Travel Duration' and 'Journey to the Core of the Unknown Sphere' Space Dimension Controller manages to tether his astral sound to the dancefloor with swirling, bouncing neon synths. It's simply breathtaking stuff.
I am categorically against the the temptation for music journalists to overload new artists with unfair comparisons. It's lazy, usually inaccurate and disrespectful to both acts in question - last year I read Plan B being compared to Curtis Mayfield, Isaac Hayes and Marvin Gaye all in one tube journey. My honest opinion is the galactic funk of the Controller is so perfect that it is incomparable by today's standards. Of course there have been producers in the past with a cosmic, space-funk sound, Manzel and Lonnie Liston Smith were doing it in the 70s, and there are plenty of producers making good music at the moment, but his unique style transgresses what is simply good and heads into territory occupied by only a handful of extremely special talents.
What is all the more impressive is that these creations are from a young man only fresh out of his teens, although trying to find out much more information about the eccentric, possibly insane artist proves difficult. He conducts interviews as 'Mr 8040', with his official biography explaining how “In the year 2257, Planet Earth was invaded by an energy seeking race of aliens known as the Pulsovians, sparking a galactic war that lasted over two years....Mr. 8040 creates music using ancient earth technologies alone in his Electropod. When ready he ventures deeper into space to uncharted colonies where music is accepted. He plays in illegal night clubs on distant moons and alien proto-spheres.” Right you are. But regardless of what planet they came from, us Earthlings lapped up his first set of releases last year and are eagerly awaiting more.
Next month he forms one head of a house music Cerberus, along with Tensnake and Lee Foss, which is being unleashed on Corsica Studios for their summer sessions party. His mixes and podcasts are peppered with his own productions and I suspect his set will be too. If ever you take a music journalist's advice on something, grab yourself a ticket and get ready for some musical astro-travel.
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