November graced us with a long-overdue vinyl pressing of Legowelt’s Dark Days, a record loaded with mystique. Released on CDr by Wolfers on his Strange Life label (nobody knows in how many copies), it contains a set of tracks “found on old dusty tapes assumed long gone,” that chronicle Legowelt’s pre-Space Force efforts and the kernel of the Dutch producer’s style. Of course the interesting thing now is how generative and right on point it all sounds: we hear the roots of Wolfers-as-Legowelt but we also hear the foundations of a lot of electronic tendencies of the past two decades.
Recorded between ’92 and ’97, these tracks seem to reinvent acid house, gather the remaining rosebuds of dark and minimal synth, wash Detroit techno in European waters and, while they’re at it, totally presage electroclash. But above and beyond its archeological value and its inspired long-sightedness this was, is and will continue to be, a great dance record. Deep, dark, mysterious, it touches the listener in all the right places and, miraculously, it hasn’t aged, just as it hadn’t between Wolfers producing it all and its initial 2004 release. Of its time then but not out of time now, Dark Days is a record that will always be capable of leaving you wide-eyed at sunrise, always capable of leading you out of your comfort zone and into a profoundly estranging yet clearly recognisable night.
ACC words 