Remember when the world was a slower, more sedate place? Back when people could go whole seconds without looking at their phone before experiencing an acute anxiety attack. Well, back then, people were really into this thing called downbeat. Basically men who wore expensive technical jackets, smoking expensive weed, and spent the rest of their money on expensive plastic toys they kept in the box were super into music that sounded like library records played at 80BPM.The bad news is that that old world's dead and buried now, but the good news is that downbeat supremo Aim is back. Sort of. The Cumbrian producer's decided to re-issue his 1999 masterpiece Cold Water Music on vinyl. That collection of jazzy breaks, strange samples and super-slow hip-hop percussion became a favourite for lots of blokes who worked in graphic design on first release. Having seen that the original vinyl pressing sold like hot cakes and was going for big bucks, Aim got all altruistic and decided it was time for a re-press, so he hooked up with ATIC and got the ball rolling."Rather than just repress the original album, we remastered and recut it from scratch using the original DAT master tapes," Aim says, "I sent the DAT's to Lewis Hopkin at Stardelta Audio Mastering and he ran them all onto a vintage AMPEX 2-track tape machine before hitting his outboard gear. The results blew me away, I couldn't believe how good it sounded."We can't believe it either, so we've decided to bring you an exclusive listen to a brand spanking new remix that's accompanying the release. Featuring the vocal talents of New Jersey rap pioneer YZ, "From Here to Fame" is a dusty, crackly, classic slice of heavily-blunted downbeat magic. Get horizontal to it below.
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Cold Water Music arrives on vinyl (2x12" ice-blue wax), digital, and limited edition cassette via ATIC very soon, and you can pre-order it here.