- Newcastle's Road To Rimini threw their final party in November, capping four years of man-machine music with sets from two regulars: Danny Wolfers, AKA Legowelt, and Creme boss TLR. As if to cater for those of us who never made the trip, the Rimini crew are motoring on to new horizons with this, the first release on their new Signals label. The One's original songs on the A-side sound more indie than dance, but it's an indie that's doused in such a range of dance music influences that you can see why the tracks appealed to Rimini's house-techno-Italo-synth-EBM-try me sensibilities.
On the title track, Emeson Nwolie's singing mixes the almost cloying aspiration of early Robert Owens ("for the little ones, let's get it straight") with the kind of angsty banalities we've come to expect from contemporary indie ("you know we're the same so why play the game?"), yet the result is far less mawkish than either of those two reference points would suggest. Some of that must be due to the production values of the backing track: fat Frankie Goes To Hollywood bass hits and creeping synth lines frame the vocal, creating a swirling interplay that all but reduces the voice to just another part of the machine. The darkness lingers on "Change My Name Change My Number," whose tumbling sub-bassline leads, every four beats, to a pleasingly resonant electric clap. Maudlin piano chords seal the mood, and Joe Ryan's tick-tock percussion echoes uneasily around Nwolie's syncopated repetition of the song's title.
It's fitting for Rimini that the somewhat esoteric styling of these originals is balanced, on the B-side, by a classic Legowelt sleazefest. Wolfers takes the title track's refrain and floats it over dueling Lamborghini basslines and raw distorted drums. The hats are constantly tweaked for a distinctively queasy sound, before a freaky acid line hits and the track drives into more turbulent territory. The wheels, oiled and menacing, rumble on.
Tracklist A1 Let's Get It Straight
A2 Change My Name Change My Number
B Let's Get It Straight (Legowelt mix)