Bleep

Smalltown Supersound rally up two of their biggest artists Bjørn Torske and Prins Thomas to set the scene for a collaborative album that perfectly encapsulates the imprint's signature deep disco with a Nordic dub sound. Square One comes fresh off the back of Bjørn Torske's killer Sex Tags Mania edition and Smalltown's unmissable Deathprod reissues.

What is instantly most striking about Square One is the feeling of an unstoppable pushing-forward motion. Bjørn and Prins fine tune every single second to give to each track, the drums and melody are perfectly complimented by the albums mid-level tempo, this feeling of both speeding ahead while the world glides below with a laid back approach marks a true realisation of Martin Hannett's prophetic "make it faster, but slower" idea of production, yet here it's set its watch to disco dub time. Having originally got together back in the late 90's to record a jam session where Bjorn recorded Prins "playing bass on some sketches I had done" the duo deemed this original session DATs to be to distorted to be considered fit for use. Stepping up to the present day and despite starting out as the idea of Bjorn remixing Prins Thomas's latest album, Principe Del Norte Smalltown saw the opportunity to get the two artists in a studio and make good on that original session.

The narrative running through the core of the record is the duo crafting some serious the fuzz chugging drums with a range of snazzy FX that takes you on a journey. Traversing through Kosmiche wig outs to more ambient SUED/Acido style long form cruising numbers. The level of production skill combined with the years of recording each artist has racked up have made the record take on the feel of a stoned, psychedelic trip where you are set to gaze into a disco abyss while the walls melt around in 4x4 time.

Undoubtedly these guys are absolute masters at their trade, and Square One is a brilliant coming together of minds whose work apart has laid the blueprint for so many incredible artists that have stemmed from Norway over the years, from Lindstrom and Todd Terje through to DJ Sotofett and DJ Fett Burger.