BnB Review: Locussolus – The Album

Written by Manu Ekanayake

imagedisco-house

Harvey's back after a long lay off, with an album that collects all his recent tunes from International Feel. You know we had to check this one out... and that we were expecting a lot.






‘I’ve never sent an email, I don’t know how to turn on a computer...’ said DJ Harvey (aka Harvey Basset, the man behind Locussolus) in a recent interview, proving that he’s not above a little self-mythologizing when the mood strikes. And that’s something that’s always been evident in his career: from his early years in the Tonka Soundsystem cutting up breaks back in Cambridge in the 80s (like many good London DJs, Harvey actually hails from the Home Counties), to his Moist parties in Covent Garden, then becoming Ministry’s late night /early morning resident on both Friday and Sat night in the 90s, and then his New Hard Left residency at the Blue Note that was seminal to the modern Shoreditch scene before he left for the States, Harvey’s always been very deliberate in his coining his ‘last of the disco Mohicans’ mystique.

Production-wise there’s the defiantly lo-fi Black Cock re-edits (fronted by a pic of Foghorn Leghorn, of course) that Harvey did with partner Gerry Rooney – which pre-empted the modern re-edit renaissance, but were obviously a nod to the classic NYC disco re-edits of Levan , Hardy etc – and his DJs mixes (Late Night Sessions for Ministry and Sarcastic Study Masters on his own Sarcastic label), both of which still go for serious money the best part of 20 years on…. Harvey’s always been one for honing his DJ image; it’s just the image in question is long-haired, moustachioed surfer, disco and deep-house dude, not big room track merchant (insert name of big name DJ here) or (latterly) minimal maestro (insert name of Ricardo Villalobos here). Just listen to the latest RA Exchange with Harvey… it does sound like he’s started to believe his own press, no doubt due to the fact that he’s (by his own admission) very much divorced from the modern club scene these days.

Our verdict:
This is a good album. But it could be great, and with the amount of adoring press there is about Harvey (and the time it’s taken to gestate), it should have been great. Gunship slips us into the squelchy sounds of some ace deep house, while Little Boots is more of a disco sleazer, while the Gunships remix (by Weatherall, no less) with vocals by Harv himself is a good laugh, if a little in the meandering side.
 
Thowdown is another nice psychedelic rocker which is thoroughly worth hearing, even if it is a little bit Stone Roses. Still, Harvey’s vocals sound good, as they do on the slightly Blockheads-sounding I Want It (which is wonderfully remixed by Lindstrom and Prins Thomas). And Tan Sedan kills it on the very London dancefloors Harvey’s been absent from for so long (despite having sorted out his passport beefs a while back). But while these are all good tunes, we were kind of expecting Harvey to capture the zeitgeist with something special, as he has done before. Could do better, Harv, could do better.
 

Rating: 7.0/10
Label: International Feel
Release date: Out Now

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