MARK PRITCHARD - MP Productions – EP 1 (12+MP3) (Sealed) (12")

Mark Pritchard returns with a six-track, club-ready EP fronted by first offering “Be Like Water”. Most of the tracks on this EP were first played in his WXAXRXP NTS mix last year, save a couple he held back. MP Productions - EP 1 will be available on 12” via Warp on 13th November. MP Productions - EP 1 sees Pritchard dip into a slew of alias’ that have kept him busy over the years. This new club 12” nods to his mesmerising formulas for making dance music, carrying the listener through a collection of styles informed by grime, dancehall, electro and techno. “Be Like Water” is a devilish 8-bar grime instrumental. Harking back to an early ‘00s grime sound, Pritchard manipulates loops of flutes and pentatonic scales to find an energy which is exciting, addictive and perfect for the club. “Rakatak” was made using samples from Spitfire’s archives of global sonic explorer David Fanshawe. For over four decades, Fanshawe travelled the globe to capture performances from different cultures. “Rakatak” takes inspiration from Fanshawe’s ‘90s album African Sanctus, a choral Mass recorded in 1972. “J is For _ _ _ _” is a Chicago-inspired house track. Grimey phone keypad sounds layered with a rapture of percussion provide seven-minutes of raw energy to reset and recalibrate the room. “LFO Special” was written at the hotel on the night of the Warp20 party in Sheffield, which featured a line up of Nightmares on Wax, Squarepusher and Forgemasters closing the show. Wanting to make a track for his set that was emblematic of the evening, Pritchard created “LFO Special”, a celebration of how much he loved the music and the label. The track introduces a dancehall sensibility over the iconic ‘LFO’ refrains of the original. On “One Way Mirror”, Pritchard takes inspiration from Shoshana Zuboff’s book ‘The Age of Surveillance Capitalism’. The adverts after “One Way Mirror” are a tongue in cheek response to the trend that insights brand mindfulness and the seven smart cities which operate in the world, uncovering coping mechanisms which favour productivity and performance. “Cities are about people, by improving the human experience we enhance the city.. and improve urban life” the melisma of computer voices harmonise in a blur of messages. He used an AI generator to create fake company names, like ‘cloakable’, which are narrated by computerised characters that developed their voices through machine learning techniques. Bringing the EP to its close, “In My Heart” provides a salient moment of techno and euphoria to hold on to in these times of club closures and 10 pm curfews. Jonathan Zawada’s artwork taps into a dystopian intersection between electronic music and machine learning that's somewhat explored on the record. Using AI software, Zawada crafts the cover image of a plastic-wrapped suited man that stands somewhere between the hyper-real and figurative abstraction - obfuscated by a computer that has learned the imprint of a human, but is yet to understand them. MP Productions - EP 1 is a consolidation of the eclectic style Pritchard has explored throughout his career; from his club music to albums like ‘Under The Sun' [2016] (featuring artists like Thom Yorke and Linda Perhacs) and 'The Four Worlds' [2018] to the Global Communication project with Tom Middleton (which was recently re-released via their Evolution label). Pritchard is currently working on the follow up to his Under The Sun album. Specs 12” in printed inner in printed outer sleeve. Download card insert Tracklisting: A1. Be Like Water A2. Rakatak A3. J Is For _ _ _ _ B1. LFO Special B2. One Way Mirror B3. In My Heart