Pitch Black vs Adrian Sherwood

When your all-time favourite producer remixes a track on the latest single from one of your all-time favourite local artists, it’s always going to be noteworthy enough to mention it on your otherwise rather inactive music blog, right?

In this case, that producer is On-U Sound guru and dubologist extraordinaire Adrian Sherwood, and that artist is the equally adored electronic-dub duo Pitch Black. The single is the title track from Pitch Black’s 2019 album Third Light, and it features three mixes of the track – the bass-tastic original, a mix from Portland producer Bodie, and the pick of the bunch, naturally, Sherwood’s Echoes of the Night Dub Mix.

It can be picked up on Bandcamp for less than the price of a cup of coffee … or £2 in regular currency. Grab it.

Choice Kiwi Cuts 2019: Pitch Black - One Ton Skank

Pitch Black are firm local favourites of this blog. 2019 saw the dynamic techno-dub duo return with yet another extraordinary album, Third Light, and while I could probably lift any track from that set to feature here, ‘One Ton Skank’ perhaps best represents everything that makes Pitch Black so special. These guys continue to stay one step ahead of the chasing pack ...

Gig Review: Pitch Black, San Fran, Wellington, 16 March 2018

Last Friday night, local electro dub fiends Pitch Black checked into Wellington’s San Fran venue for the second leg of the duo’s three-date Sonic Portal tour. It was a long overdue return to the capital for Mike Hodgson and Paddy Free, after Wellington missed out on the late 2016/early 2017 - mostly festival - dates that passed for the Filtered Senses (album release) tour.

A Sandwiches (club) gig in the capital of roughly a decade ago is still spoken about in glowing terms by all who attended (yours truly included), so it was little surprise to discover the San Fran venue almost full upon my relatively early 9.30pm arrival. Wellington dubheads and dance music aficionados clearly have long memories … though, of course, the short-term stuff may be more of a challenge. Whatever the case, this one carried the secondary billing of being a 21st party, with Pitch Black celebrating 21 years of being at the cutting edge of the local dub and electronica scene, and a cursory glance around the venue confirmed that it would just as likely have been years, if not a decade or two, since the last occasion many of these early doors punters had attended any kind of 21st celebration (that of their own children notwithstanding).

Free & Hodgson, dub fiends ...

Pitch Black had been playing around half an hour before I arrived, easing the crowd into the night with what they called their “downbeat set”, which meant a lot of gentle swaying and head bobbing, as our dynamic duo filled the room with layer upon layer of ethereal texture and languid bass-driven technicolour soundscapes. That continued for another half hour or so before we had the pleasure of Wellington’s own DJ Ludus (aka Emma Bernard) for company while our party hosts took a well-earned refreshment break.

Ludus was a perfect fit for this gig, and a swelling of the dancefloor during her mostly minimal ambient set – is minimal ambient a thing in genre-speak? – suggests she bought her own rather large following with her. It would certainly account for the injection of a few younger faces into the crowd, many of whom would scarcely have been out of nappies when Pitch Black unleashed its debut album, Futureproof, on an unsuspecting world 20-odd years ago.

When Pitch Black returned an hour later, the bpm factor and energy levels were upped significantly as they launched into what they call their “pumping set” with all the vigour of men half their age. It was around this point I realised it was going to be virtually impossible to review this (or any other) Pitch Black gig in any orthodox kind of way. The duo’s modus operandi is to continually fuck with the heads of their audience by blending and mashing together various tracks from different albums all at the same time. At no one point can it be said “oh, this is ‘The Gatherer’ …” or “this is from Rude Mechanicals”, because at no one single point are we being exposed to one single track. It’s a method that serves them well at giant outdoor festivals across the globe, and it is one that served them equally well at San Fran last Friday night.

Suffice to say Messrs Hodgson and Free covered a fair portion of their illustrious back catalogue as the night progressed into the wee small hours and we zig-zagged back and forth between albums. And they did so with some gusto. If they bypassed Wellington last time around, they were clearly keen to make it up to us, something they achieved with ease, and more …

If I have a complaint, and it’s probably more of an observation given the limitations of the venue, it’s that the visual feast I’ve always associated Pitch Black gigs with in the past simply wasn’t there this time. There was a backdrop with a multitude of FX and far-out visuals etc, but the lighting was relatively ineffective and the whole thing (visually) just failed to hit the heights I’ve come to expect. Having said that, San Fran can’t be faulted for its sound, which was crisp and clear, and there was a moment during the second set when I swear that bass was travelling straight through my chest.

I can’t wait for the next one, just don’t make us wait so long next time, eh fellas?

Here’s something I wrote about Pitch Black for NZ Musician some 18 months ago …

http://nzmusician.co.nz/features/pitch-black-futures-knocking/

The Festive Dozen 2016: Pitch Black - Circuit Bent

Pitch Black occupy a relatively unique place in the wider pantheon of New Zealand electronic music production. Nobody else comes close to matching the duo’s heady brand of electro dub across five flawless albums, and the same can be said about their extraordinary longevity within a genre that tends to date music a hell of a lot quicker than just about any other. 2016 saw Mike Hodgson and Paddy Free celebrate 20 years of working together, and part of that – upcoming extensive tour notwithstanding – was to release yet another state-of-the-art masterpiece in the form of (album) Filtered Senses. The advance single release from that work was the rather aptly-titled ‘Circuit Bent’, which was a firm favourite long before I finally got to hear the whole set.  

(The Festive Dozen is a fairly randomly selected year-end collection of clips featuring the tunes which featured most prominently on the (generally pop-loving) iPod playlists of everythingsgonegreen at various stages throughout 2016) ...

 

Future's Knocking

I was lucky enough to interview one of my musical heroes, Pitch Black’s Paddy Free, for the October/November edition of NZ Musician magazine. Having followed the duo’s work for something close to 20 years, it’s fair to say I may have been in fanboy mode at the time ...

Click on the link below to read Future’s Knocking: 

http://nzmusician.co.nz/features/pitch-black-futures-knocking/