- With an alias like Dance, you get the sense that Blank Mind label head Samuel Purcell has a back-to-basics inclination. That's certainly true of his debut single under the name, which avails itself of classic breakbeats to come up with two tracks of eerie, deja vu funk. Purcell is unafraid to go straight to the very hoariest of rave staples—the breakbeat from James Brown and Lyn Collins' "Think (About It)," along with the yelps later immortalized in Rob Base and DJ E-Z Rock's "It Takes Two." You might think that there's no need, in 2012, to trot out those particular referents, aside from shameless retro pandering, and in most cases, you'd be right. But Purcell somehow makes them work.
Both tracks teeter on the edge between the familiar and the strange. "Still" is the more immediately distinctive, thanks to a wilting arpeggio that recalls Hi Scores-era Boards of Canada and a slinky saxophone sample that makes me think of '88-era hip-hop; it consists of little more than a breakbeat, some grunts and a thin film of reverb, but it conveys a surprising amount of mystery with its humble fundamentals. "Ha," based on similar material, is the more kinetic of the two tracks, lavishing attention on springy snares that are given a rollercoaster ride on Purcell's sampler. It sounds like vintage jungle played at 33, and it moves like a drumstick chopping Jello.