Royal Dust’s self-titled debut is one of my favourite releases of 2013 – almost like a crate-digger reimagining of Matthew Herbert. Apparently recorded the trio of percussionist Miguel Toro, Ma Pel(Mariano Scopel) on guitar and synth, and Ben Abarbanel-Wolff on tenor sax and keys,with a single microphone and then edited down, the debut as Royal Dust conjured up gritty 60s jazz atmospheres reminiscent of a much grimier, dark alley version of Conjoint (David Moufang/Move D’s late 90s vibes and electronics project) or Brunt Friedman & Uwe Schmidt’s Flanger project.
This set of remixes is really all about the Villalobos mix. The flip is a rather lacklustre rework by Paul Frick (Brandt, Bauer, Frick) which is far too dancefloor obvious. The Villalobos mix of Royal, however, takes the original and twists it into an even deeper noir-ish groove. He extends Arbarbanel-Wolff’s sax, and dubs the mix for a good nine minutes beginning with quite a chug before a three minute dissolve into endless delays. Killer.
Seb Chan
