Dub Plate Selection (Twilight Circus)

mark weddle <markw@southwind.net>

Twilight Circus Dub Sound System "Dub Plate Selection"
M Records CD 160 (72:40)

Twilight Circus is Ryan Moore with Sly Dunbar, Sky Juice,
P. Bourne and magical mystery guests.

1. The Ride (6:44)
2. New Steppers (3:19)
3. Filter 13 (4:56)
4. Trouble Dub Plate (4:51)
5. Beneath the Valley of the Ultra Dub (4:33)
6. 808 Dub Plate (7:39)
7. Rocking Dub (12 inch version) (4:09)
8. Lowell and Nine (Shaka Dub Plate) (5:02)
9. Sir Dub Plate (3:21)
10. Indian (Space Dub Plate) (4:26)
11. Filter 13 (Party Mix) (5:00)
12. Lowell and Nine Dub Plate (4:53)
13. Filter 13 (Wailers Tribute Mix) (4:41)
14. Bong Loop (Paranoia Mix) (9:00)

Overall impression: very, very good! This is Ryan's 4th
full length album in just 3 years, and they get better with
each release. I believe this cd is comprised primarily of
new material, with four or five remixes of songs from the
previous albums (Beneath the Valley .., Lowell and Nine,
Indian, etc). This collection continues the more textured
sound of the previous album "Bin Shaker Dub", and would no
doubt me familiar to anyone who's seen TC live in the past
few years. Swirling electronics, keyboards, piano, echo
chamber drums and driving dub bass ... all of the common
trademark sounds we've come to know and love of Ryan Moore.
Really lovely stuff. A+ packaging, wonderfully happy and
colorful graphics with personalized art and initials by
Ryan in each individually numbered cd. Highly recommended,
especially if you're a fan of the previous TC or any other
dub music.

Twilight Circus on the web:

http://www.bsg-inc.com/twilight/

Twilight Circus cds/12"s can be ordered via:

http://www.bsg-inc.com/twilight/mailorder/index.html
http://www.soleilmoon.com/

markw@southwind.net 4/8/98
http://www2.southwind.net/~markw/

Intransitive Review 5/98 (fwd)

<forwarded---->

- Okay, that's all the news for now, on to the Review. All articles are by
Howard Stelzer or Richard Chartier. Please feel free to forward this to
whoever you think might enjoy it. Okay:

...............................................................................

Twilight Circus Dub Sound System "Dub Plate Selection" CD (M, Netherlands)
An otherwise useless friend of mine once described dub as perfect
pot-smoking music. Now, I wouldn't know, but I'll take his word. Dub is
derived from reggae, only with the drums and bass all the way forward in
the mix, and everything else smothered in reverb and studio effects.
Y'know all those "remix" CDs? Y'know the term "drum n'bass"? The whole
idea started in the 70's with dub. Nowadays, it's a genre that isn't
necessarily a remix of anything else. Ryan Moore, the Canadian member of
Marillion-for-the-90's prog-rock band the Legendary Pink Dots, is the
Twilight Circus, and I'll be damned if he doesn't sound like he's straight
from Jamaica.
Nothing about this (or any other TC) record looks or sounds like a Pink
Dots record. In fact, if you didn't know, you'd probably never make the
connection. That's a big plus for Moore. The resemblance to classic dub is
uncanny; Twilight Circus has far more in commom with King Jammy than with
Bill Laswell (whose "dub" frequently stretches the word's definition quite
far). There really isn't anything about it that a reggae fan would find at
all unusual. On this, his third CD, Moore picks up the pace with more
upbeat tunes (quick, like Dub Syndicate's "Echomania") than on "Vol.1" and
a couple of bonus cuts from a 12". Very nice, consistant stuff, perfect
for hot Florida weekends by the pool. (HS)
contact: M Records, P.O.Box 469, 6500 Al Nijmegen, the Netherlands
http://www.bsg.inc.com/twilight/

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-Grufty Jim- (www.freq.freeserve.co.uk)

I first encountered Twilight Circus Dub Sound System at a Legendary Pink Dots
gig in Chicago. Ryan Moore, who handles bass and percussion duties for the Pink
Dots, strode onto the stage with a hand-held Theremin and pink feather boa and
proceeded to freak out all the Goths with some very mellow cosmic Dub; all
swirly synth noises, deep rolling bass-lines and trippy samples - kind of like
a slightly more sinister Dreadzone without the uplifting vocals. If you keep
that image in your mind then this album won't hold too many surprises; in fact,
by and large, there are considerably fewer "trippy samples" than I'd expected
from a member of the Pink Dots, and Dub Plate Selection ultimately comes across
as a fairly typical slice of spaced out Dub.

To an extent, that's not actually too big a criticism - I'm certainly not going
so far as to describe this album as being overtly generic; no platonic form
allegations here; but rather that it is a nigh perfect example of that sound
you're looking for at 10pm on a warm summer night when your head is a little
fuzzy and you can't see yourself moving any further than the kitchen for the
next few hours and you say to yourself, "What i could really do with now is
some Dub!" That said, the fact that Dub Plate Selection is by-and-large a
fairly predictable album; finely crafted, skilfully arranged and strangely
intricate in places; but still fairly predictable. It's unlikely that it'll
ever stand out enough from the pack to get it on heavy rotation those warm
summer nights.

So yeah, all in all this is a rich, deep, mellow album full of exactly what you
want from your Dub. It's a very pleasant aural experience, with more than
enough unusual noises to avoid slipping into an Ambient or Trance groove - so
if you're looking for something along those lines then this is probably the
shiny silver disc for you; the same could also be said of a lot of other
albums, it's true, but the dearth of vocals on Dub Plate Selection may actually
turn out to be a selling point in a genre that's already got enough deeply
stoned voices impelling you to free the weed.

-Grufty Jim-
www.freq.freeserve.co.uk