Build An Ark - Dawn Remixes

You should be able to get Build An Ark records on the NHS or on your medical insurance. In a (western) world obsessed with exact measurements and insurance, sometimes less attention is paid to the spirit. Build An Ark come to redress the balance with their deep soulful music under the guidance of Carlos Nino, Miguel Atwood-Ferguson, and crew, and on this 12″ they revisit their last album ‘Dawn’, with a collection of remixes.

It’s a slab of LA sunshine, bringing a bunch of the west coasts finest producers together, eshewing the usual ‘remix-for-the-club’ format, and instead twisting the multitracks of Build An Ark into new spiritual testaments. The A side kicks off with Daedelus remixing ‘In Her Smile’, chopping up the double bass figure and threading twinkling synths and soaring strings to make a sweet lullaby of an intro, and the deep meditational mood is continued with The Long Lost, (Daedelus and his wife Laura), reworking ‘You Yourself Are The Key To The Universe’ with Laura’s haunting vocals setting an other-worldly tone. Closing the side, Carlos Nino goes abstract with the sounds of an alien city waking up to a new day.

So far not a beat in sight, and it’s a refreshing change. But Ras G steps up to blow the cobwebs away with an equally-out there thumper, with crushing bass, strata-east-of-tomorrow flutes, and a bizarre public-education-style announcement about rhythm without nature, and spiralling universes. Beats to turn your mind inside out no less, while GB and A Race Of Angels collaborate on a futuristic gospel tip to transform the track ‘When Ancestors Speak’ into a real aisle-stomper. In true pallendromic style, the EP ends with a live version of ‘Welcome’, a spiritual jazz incantation of the highest quality, that would have the souls of Trane, Alice, and Albert Ayler glowing with warmth.

Often, things can’t be put right by a trip to the psychiatrist, doctor, or plastic surgeon, and just sometimes the body needs certain frequencies to wash over it, and replenish the soul. This is one of those records.

Build An Ark – Dawn Remixes is out now on Kindred Spirits Records