Live Review: Pharmaceutical Audio release enthralling compilation, Earth Tones Reworks

23 October 2020 | 3:52 pm | Jessica Negus
Originally Appeared In

The mysterious Sydney-based label Pharmaceutical Audio has launched a remix compilation of Zen In Space’s Earth Tones release from March this year.

The mysterious Sydney-based label Pharmaceutical Audio has launched a remix compilation of Zen In Space’s Earth Tones release from March this year. The Earth Tones Reworks champion Australia’s emerging organica scene, genre, and sonic language, bringing together some of Australia’s finest jazz and electronic music artists in a release that feels perfectly attuned to the upcoming summer.

Jad & The, best known for prolific releases on labels such as Toy Tonics, Rhythm Section, Haws and his own imprint Beats of No Nation, rebuilds Origin Forest with a murky, downtempo junglist breakbeat, whilst band leader of futurist soul-jazz group 30/70, Allysha Joy, strips back Jannali with a haunting vocal cut. Head honcho of Moonshoe Records, Cousin, provides a hypnotic rework of Transcience, replete with rainsticks and lavish hand percussion, followed by Melbourne based producer Midnight Tenderness, of Butter Sessions and Skylab Radio fame, offering a warm revision of Caterpillar Dub, with supreme harmonic clarity finely attuned to soundsystem listening. Zeitgeist Freedom Energy Exchange transforms the titular track with a pulsating, syncopated drive, and Pharmaceutical Audio rounds out the release, combining forces with multi-instrumentalist Joel Spira to add delicately tuned textures to their reimagining of Mystic Mountain Rose.

With the original release combining a lush palette of organic field recordings, live instrumentation and synthesised percussion in an ode to the intense beauty and importance of our natural landscapes, the Earth Tones Reworks are an outstanding complement to Zen In Space’s existing release, and reaffirm Pharmaceutical Audio’s footing as one of Sydney’s standout emerging labels.

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The Earth Tones Reworks are available to buy and stream on Bandcamp here.

Words by JESSICA NEGUS

Image provided by Pharmaceutical Audio

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