Mark E

The Day Mark E

For all the wonderfully subtle shell-breaking he did on his full-length, Mark E falls back on old, slow habits for his new single, "The Day." And welcomely, we might add. Pitching things down to a basement lounge floor crawl, the Midlands DJ/producer wraps his always chugging kicks and snares in serpentine synth-bass, jazzy, tripleted hi-hats, and moaning, wordless soul vocals. Its grasp is tantric— hinting coyly at ecstatic release, but never fully delivering. For the vinyl junkies that bought Stone Breaker and missed out on it the first time around (it was absent from that version), this release should be a no brainer. But "The Day" isn?t carrying all the weight here. A new track called "Special FX" will have sample hounds—particularly those with a thing for classic electro-pop—salivating. And the oft imitated, never replicated Prins Thomas shows up on the flip for a (naturally) eleven- minute revamp of "The Day," livening up the bass and drum patterns, adding in strings, piano, guitar, organ, and ending up with something that totally could have emanated from a Camaro at some point in the early seventies. (Albeit, one owned by someone with interest in eleven-minute instrumentals.) It even has a fade out!