Throughout the course of history, some of the best music has come out during the hardest times and through situations that caused a struggle and affected things socially and politically. In the case of the present day, our hardest time has been dealing with COVID and the pandemic that stretched and easy 14 months with several of those causing a lockdown. During that time, many of my fellow DJs, producers and creators tucked themselves safely in their labs and got to work without wasting anytime. Not knowing how long things would last, this was the perfect time for us all to get healthy, both mentally and physically while creating something great so that when there was a light at the end of the tunnel, we would ready to give the world new art.
Known for mixing and mastering of other people’s records, Ken Long did exactly what I would hope any artist had done during the lockdown and on his latest release, “Version Control” via We Stay True, he dove into a genre and sound that I love which is Library and soundtrack themes. Produced and recorded in NE London during 2020, Version Control is deep and at some points eerie with thick electric pianos riding over Roland arpeggios, SP1200 grooves and percussion, lashings of thunder reverb and space echos, all mixed and recorded analog and cut from the original tapes.
Definitely one for those who are heavily into and collect library’esque recordings and should be one that finds it’s way into your crates for essential listening.