You know, despite all that careful shaping and deliberate cultivating of his own mystique, Zomby’s never been disinclined to paying homage to influential sub-genres. If you remember, his landmark album Where Were U in ‘92? wistfully recollected that period during the early 90s, when bona fide electronic music found an international footing and it suddenly became socially acceptable (depending on the crowd) for people to use pacifiers for reasons other than their stated purpose.
Now, the British producer has an eye toward the somewhat more recent musical past: he’s just announced Mercury’s Rainbow, an album of the possibly “long lost” variety, comprised of tracks that had Wiley’s influential eskibeat sound as their underpinning. (Wiley — otherwise known as the “Godfather of Grime” — and the series of eskibeat tracks that he released during the early-to-mid aughts largely paved the way for the entire grime genre as we know it today.)
Out as a double LP now on Modern Love, Mercury’s Rainbow’s 16 component tracks have been kept under intentional or neglectful wraps for almost a decade! Supposedly Zomby had an “intense two week period” (according to Boomkat) around 2008 or 2009 during which he composed the tracks in question, but various hindrances prevented their distribution to the public. The stars have obviously now aligned; and no, they aren’t telling you to transcend your corporeal limitations ahead of the next half-moon. They’re emitting a sound that adds new layers of complexity to on the already-much-utilized grime base.
But don’t take my word for it. Hear the album track “Delvaux” below. and buy the (quite limited) Mercury’s Rainbow here.
Mercury’s Rainbow tracklisting:
01. Mercury’s Rainbow
02. Choke
03. Poison
04. Static
05. Delvaux
06. Silver Ocean
07. Immersion
08. Waterfall of Ice
09. Rigamortis
10. Whirlpool
11. Tet5uo
12. Solar Ashes
13. Horizon
14. Patina
15. X Ray
16. Atoms
