Philip Sherburne's 2010 interview with Barcelona's John Talabot helped shine a light on a singular talent. This dainty little release from Hivern Discs, a label based in the Catalan capital, is a seven-inch that further confirms Talabot as remixer and original artist with a rare grasp of nuance when it comes to electronic music.
Because it's on short-play format, both tracks are correspondingly brief affairs. Talabot's edit of "T.A.M.B" is a reworking of a Pional remix of an obscure Marvin Gaye track (Am I making sense? Oh good). Working with one of the great voices of all time is a daunting prospect, but Talabot's shows a sympathetic lightness of touch—a smattering of harps, a simple delayed rimshot, the merest hint of bass notes. Perhaps Talabot reserved the bass for his own "I Want Tonite," a Balearic fantasia of sombre church organ swells, booming sad bass, quasi-Baroque pads and Air-style vocodered vox. Brief they may be, but this is fragile, slow-moving, emotive, uncompromising music-making.
Tracklist: Pional & John Talabot - T.A.M.B / I Want Tonite
A Pional - T.A.M.B (JT's Sunset Edit)
B John Talabot - I Want Tonite
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