No More Unto The Dance is a reflection of nightlife memories and the search for the perfect transportative electronic beat; a collection of reverberations that have fragmented with the passing of time. It is a document of life once lived in the very heart of metropolises, immersed in their subcultures: a time that was predicated in part by a passion for club culture, dancing, dressing up and related explorations carried out with the obsession, enjoyment and energy of youth.
Much of that gradually (or sometimes not so gradually) faded away or took other pathways.
The world in which this recording was made does still come alive at night but it is more likely to be the nocturnal foraging and wanderings of wildlife rather than in a low-ceilinged basement lit by a strobe light.
The music presented here is the soundtrack to those basements, filtered through the looking glass of a life far removed from the bright lights and big city, the dressing up and dancing but a memory – a world far, far apart, almost that seems to belong only to the worn and aged pages of a faded, forgotten magazine.
The journey it takes envisions a mixtape of memories and echoes of those pages, of 12”s bought because of the primal rush their electronics would bring on when listened to in a record shop, the lucky dip of unknown records bought hopefully from the racks of bargain basements, the more abstract/triphop beats to be found in intriguingly designed/obscure sleeves and to times lost in the seemingly endless dreams of a club; a time when the future burned with the brightness, optimism and idealism of youth.
(Quoted from text which accompanied the album.)
“…never loses sight of the beat, the heartbeat that every great club has (or had), that gave every one its own sense of purpose and desire, be it a prohibition speakeasy or a chill-out room in a rural barn. Such imaginings are haunting, layering one another with emotional imagery that cannot help but lead the ghosts onto the floor, a disco queen here, a rave scene there, the scent of northern soul, the smell of teen spirit. By the time it’s over, you feel as though you’ve been dancing all night; by the time you’ve recovered, you want to do it again.” (Dave Thompson writing at Spin Cycle/Goldmine.)
Elsewhere at A Year In The Country:
- Audiological Transmission #36/52: No More Unto The Dance – Dark Days
- Audiological Transmission #37/52: No More Unto The Dance – Plaintive Resonations
- Audiological Transmission #38/52: No More Unto The Dance – Future Dissolvation
- Audiological Transmission #39/52: No More Unto The Dance – A Moment Of Optimism
- Audiological Transmission #40/52: No More Unto The Dance – When Did It All Break?
- Audiological Transmission #51/52: The Experiment Ends – No More Unto The Dance / Revisitation #5a
- A Year In The Country – No More Unto The Dance Night and Dawn Editions released
