DJ and producer David Holmes is welcomed to the Late Night Tales fraternity with an evocative collection of personal songs and music, peppered with exclusive new material and rare gems. By now, I think we all know David Holmes, right? There’s acid house Holmes, with bone-rattling Chicago jams and Detroit destroyers; break-digger Holmes responsible for the grittily shaking ‘Let’s Get Killed’ and seminal Essential Mix compilation (which brought Sixto Rodriguez to people’s attention, and then there’s soundtrack Holmes. His most enduring and vital source of musical inspiration - cinema - plugged into David’s first solo record ‘This Film’s Crap, Let’s Slash the Seats’ and inspired 2000’s ‘Bow Down to the Exit Sign’; created as the soundtrack to a not-yet-made movie. Official soundtracks have been bountiful, including scores for Soderbergh’s Out Of Sight and Ocean’s trilogy, '71, Hunger and Good Vibrations. In a series of personal songs sung by himself, David’s last solo album ‘The Holy Pictures’ explored influences of La Düsseldorf, The Jesus and Mary Chain and early Brian Eno. His Unloved collaboration with Keefus Ciancia and Jade Vincent then took us on a musical journey full of raw 60s pop-noir, psychedelia and French Ye Ye with a contemporary twist. Somehow he’s also found time to produce records by Primal Scream and Jon Spencer Blues Explosion. Unsurprisingly, for someone au fait with matters cinematic, this Late Night Tales conjures up its own mindmovies. It’s not only packed with the judiciously selected nuggets for which his mixes are noted but also stuffed with original material, including collaborations with BP Fallon and Jon Hopkins and an amazing new reading of 10cc’s ‘I’m Not In Love’ by Holmes-produced Song Sung. In fact, there’s a Celtic thread running through the whole journey with Stephen Rea’s reading of an extract from Seamus Heaney’s AENEID BOOK VI - Elsewhere Anchises. Among the other gems included here are David Crosby’s lush ‘Orleans’, Buddy Holly’s celestial ‘Love Is Strange’ and the Children Of Sunshine’s ‘It’s A Long Way To Heaven’. David Holmes loves music. It’s a way of expressing the sometimes inexpressible or the inconsolable; a questing desire to find out just what is over the next hill. It’s no surprise to learn he’s a keen walker. Always on the move, headphones on, lost in some reverie or piece of music; the soundtrack to his life, the stuff that feeds his imagination.
G**Y
Excellent Album
Superb cd .Highlight for me was the spoken word eulogy by BP Fallon re Henry McCullough.BEAUTIFUL. The whole album is superb.Up to Mr Holmes high standard.Highly recommended.
A**R
Five Stars
A very moving and spiritually uplifting compilation ....
M**Y
Very good record!
Very good compilation.
T**M
Five Stars
great as is most of his stuff
R**S
Late Night Tales from David Holmes
I own just about everything that DJ, recording artist, producer and crate digger David Holmes has released and although I don't own any other Late Night Tales compilations, I just had to get this one. Subtitled 'God's Waiting Room Mix', Holmes has created an ambient, ethereal and very personal compilation that features music from the past alongside more recent tracks and also some previously unreleased recordings. As he explains in the sleeve notes, he has attempted to explore themes of "Memory, love, living, family, friendship, death and the afterworld". There are nine exclusive tracks, six of the tracks are either co-composed or produced by Holmes and a number of artists from his homeland of Northern Ireland feature.The flow of the album is perfect and there are many highlights. The absolute highlight is BP Fallon's passionate spoken word eulogy to Northern Irish guitarist Henry McCullough. Accompanied by a backing track by Holmes, it was recorded in one take on the evening of McCullough's funeral. Jeff Bridges & Keefus Ciancia's 'It's In Every One of Us' is 6 minutes of ambient Americana and the previously unreleased cover of 'I'm Not in Love' by Irish twin sisters Song Sung borrows some of 10cc’s backing vocals and percussion and it’s even more dreamy than the original. The Langley Schools-esque 'It's a Long Way to Heaven' by The Children of Sunshine is as addictive as it is sinister and although I'm not sure of the language, the gorgeous female vocals on 'Ru-Ru (Sleep Little Baby)' by Lullaby Movement are extraordinarily precise in their pronunciation. With Buddy Holly, David Crosby and a spoken word monologue from Stephen Rea, it really is an eclectic but focused collection of music.In summary, this is a must for Holmes aficionados. There's a lot of new music here and it's so much more than just a trawl through the more esoteric records in his collection. Featuring notes on all the tracks by Holmes, the playing time is 71:49 minutes*If you buy the vinyl or CD of this, be sure to visit the Late Night Tales website and enter the unique code that arrives with your copy. Here you can download WAV and MP3 copies of a continuous mix of the vinyl/CD album and also a copy of the album that features the full unedited versions of all the songs and clocks in at 102 minutes*
D**.
Four Stars
Bests and pieces
M**R
Five Stars
Brother loved it
M**D
Five Stars
brilliant, brilliant, brilliant!
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