You know you’re doing something right when you get signed to Brownswood Recordings – a label run by one of the most influential names in electronic music, Gilles Peterson. Gang Colours’ break came when Ghostpoet, who signed to the label in 2010, requested his debut single to be remixed by the young producer. This brought the music of Will Ozanne (aka Gang Colours) to the attention of the label, and he stepped up to produce an incredible remix, bringing his flair – deep, glitchy, ticking beats – to the table to beef up the production on the tune and transform it into a whole different monster. Having been discovered and proven himself way beyond expectations with the remix, the rest, as they say, is history.
Now the release of Gang Colours’ debut album is just around the corner and here at Art Wednesday we’ve been lucky enough to get a sneak preview and some copies of the album to give away to our dearly beloved readers (details below). So, ‘what’s it like?’ we hear you ask. Well, if you’ve been in the loop with any of his material that’s been hitting the internet recently, such as ‘On Compton Bay’, which did the rounds as a free download, and single ‘Fancy Restaurant’, which was released earlier this week, then we’re probably preaching to the choir when we say – it’s top banana! Like all good ambient music should be, it’s massively evocative. The record has a delicate beauty to it; as though tumbleweed beats were being blown along by the melodic breeze, while the listener takes in the sounds sat on the park bench, reminiscing as the songs pass them by. The soundscapes draw influence from childhood memories as well as the musical influences that have been rehashed to create Gang Colours’ truly original sound. We’re reluctant to call it ‘ambient dubstep’, although that’s probably the best definition to hand. ‘Dubstep’ just seems a slightly lacklustre description of anything that doesn’t make your eardrums recoil and your face melt off. Anyway, whatever you want to call it, it’s a sonic journey into the childhood of Gang Colours, with just enough bumped up bass kicks and ticks ‘n’ snaps to keep the ambience of the piano and synths moving along nicely.
All this talk’s making you quite fancy a copy for yourself, isn’t it? Well, you might just be in luck. As we mentioned, it just so happens that we’ve managed to get our mitts on a pile of copies of the album, and being the generous, loving kind that we are here at Art Wednesday, we’re giving them all to you. So just head over to our Facebook page and ‘like’ the post about this article and we’ll contact the winners once the draw’s been done.
‘The Keychain Collection’ comes out on Monday (27th Feb). For more Gang Colours, check out his Facebook here
