By Michael Ordidge
Initially, when you find out about a new artist, the first thing you notice is their name. Upon encountering Leonidas & Hobbes I started thinking back through where I might have hear these names before… Well, Leonidas, turns out is an ancient greek hero, if you’ve ever seen the movie ‘300’, he is the main protagonist. Hobbes, or … & Hobbes, is a cynical satirist tiger and other half of Calvin & Hobbes the comic strip. An interesting combination so far, with mixtures of fact, myth fiction, history and humour, This piqued my interest, I wanted to find out what this mix would sound like. The mission statement for ‘Machines’ reads ‘an EP with one foot in the past, one foot in the future and both eyes aimed squarely at the dance floor’ is objective and direct. This is starting to sound interesting.
Opening track, ‘Driftin’ starts out with a positive and uplifting feel, originally from the gospel intro, smoothly leading into the rhythm section until the bass hits you. Then you willfind it difficult to sit yourself back down. The rolling tones playing through the track are reminiscent of Candi Staton’s ‘you got the love’ make a notable addition, flanked by some well placed synth claps. It’s the intro of the additional vox and synth towards the latter half where you really get a sense of the feeling of whole piece and how neatly the different parts have been assembled.
Track two, ‘Penthouse Dub’ continues with a keen sense of rhythm, you feel that somebody squeezed in a quick reference to Tito Puente. The rhythm was flirted with briefly on the previous track but brought safely back for a second incantation, maintaining a decent pace all the way through. My mind harks back to an old drum and bass tune along the line of ‘31 seconds’ or something by LTJ Bukem but instead of dropping the overused breakbreat sample typical for the genre they’ve opted for an uptempo house beat. At this point you get a sense that Leonidas & Hobbes really know their stuff.
‘Jackin Pschidt’, great name for a track…but this is the point in the EP where you can see the see why they have their ‘eyes aimed squarely at the dance floor’. The techno claps a few minutes into the track are at the point where you realise what’s actually happened, those involuntary movements in response to the music have taken over. You are no longer in control of your own body… The music is in control of you! Your mind flicks back to old warehouses, UV lighting, white gloves and smiley faces. At no point does this ever feel like a track that parodies the time but gives it a more respectful nod in that direction.
Track four, ‘ Pavement K’, starts out as a moody and immersive piece. The echoes that flow through the whole track – feels like you’re trapped inside a hollow tube or even more so… an ancient hollowed out cavern surrounded by slow moving and lumbering beasts. The bass drops at just the right time and in just the right way, to me this sounds a lot like leftfield meets some ol school Jamaican dub.
Program, the bonus track, is again another change of tempo, theme and vibe. For some reason, I feel my self wanting to dig out an old piece of vinyl flooring to lay down on the and practice some breaking moves as homage to the electro part of this song. The samples from TRON only enhance the feel of this track, 80’s pop culture references often get a thumbs up in my book.
The trouble with a lot of electronic dance music in most repescts is it’s repetition, this has often been a stick point for the people that ‘do and don’t’ get it. Thankfully Leonidas & Hobbes do not fall into this trap easily… Variety is one of the strongest parts of their work, making the whole EP an absolute pleasure to listen to. They also have a keen sense of visualisation, when you take the time to listen attentively there are scenes and times you can place to each of these songs.
The music is littered with plenty of references to other sources of dance music, you can see the amount of different things it’s helped me think back to. I can’t quite work out at this point if it is a Masters level thesis, with all these references, or a love letter written to the music of yesteryear, or maybe parts of both And finally, by the time you’ve given the EP it’s third run through, you realise how compelling an EP it actually is.