Comprised of Andy Seymour and future Zoviet France associate Andy Eardley, Newcastle UK-based electronic duo Ingleton Falls originally self-released this debut album ‘Champagne In Mozambique’ back in 1993 as a limited run of 100 handmade cassette copies before seemingly vanishing forever. With its five tracks drawing upon house, dub and New Beat influences, over the ensuing 25 years, ‘Champagne In Mozambique’ has become something of a cult artefact, with the sheer rarity of original copies only adding to its mystique.
Fortunately however, new Adelaide-based label Isle Of Jura have stepped in with this impressive vinyl reissue, which sees the original cassette recordings receiving an excellent remastering job. The first side, respectively labelled ‘Unaware’ contains the more bizarre and freaked out tracks here, opening track ‘It’s Just A Hobby’ with an elegant Balearic-tinged wander through synthesised bass runs, airy ambient pads and fluid proto-house rhythms that sees samples from what sounds like a US talkshow discussing graverobbing and necrophilia being cut-up and layered over the beats, and what’s particularly jarring is the placidity of the backing musical accompaniment more than anything else.
From there, ‘Possessed’ drops things down into deep digi-dub that calls to mind early nineties Adrian Sherwood more than anything else as tinkling keyboard runs ripple between swaggering programmed drums and cavernous bass, the addition of sampled preachers and television dialogue suggesting ‘Official Version’-era Front 242 being dragged off into one of On-U Sound’s industrial edged echo chambers.
By comparison, the second side labelled ‘Aware’ gets more spacious and blissful, with ‘High’ taking things off on a swaggering dub-tinged wander through bright synth arrangements, gospel-hued backing vocals and stoner-centric samples that sits somewhere between ‘Screamadelica’ and early Orb, before ‘Mind Yer Head’ closes this album with an eleven minute journey through ebbing laidback synth noodling, meditation tape samples and airy, dub-inflected rhythms that sounds tailormade for an early nineties chillout room and a lava lamp. In this case, it’s the curious sense of creeping familiarity that adds to the charm of this distinctly eccentric album.
