Artist:
Darren Price
Title:
The Novamute Outtakes 1999 To 2004
Label:
Playback
Cat#:
none
Release Date:
28th January 2020 (Streaming)
31st July 2022 (Bandcamp)
Format:
download & streaming
Tracklist:
01.
Holdback
02.
Fatbeats
03.
More And More
04.
Chase The Break
05.
Step To The Groove
06.
My Oberhiem 4 Voice
07.
Fall On I
Except Bandcamp the track names are extended by the year: Track 01 – 03, 06 => 1999; Track 04, 05 => 2004; Track 07 => 2001.
Press Info:
Darren Price Bio by NovaMute
Darren Price sits chewing on a mouthful of mashed potato in a West London eatery. A quietly spoken unassuming bloke, his warm laugh and welcoming smile make you feel instantly relaxed. Admitting to a love of dance music and reggae , Darren laughs at the suggestion of calling his classy debut album “Pricey Meets the Rockers Downtown ( In Woking). “I don’t think I’d get away with that one ” he chuckles. But you see Pricey has much more in common with the likes of Tubby, the Scientist and the like. Pricey has managed to take a much used blue-print and indelibly scrawl his own identity all over it. An innovator making music in the shadow of Heathrow airport and the roar of Concorde twice a day. oh yeah, and Pricey hates heavy metal.
Aged 26 Darren Price is a bit of a Donald Trump of West London. With his fingers in enough pies to swamp Mr. Kipling’s warehouse, Woking born, Price has crammed in a massive amount in those twenty six short years. Absorbing the mayhem around him and transforming it into a positive rush of activity, kick starting a rapidly developing DJing career and pushing his acclaimed recording efforts into the critical spotlight it seems, Mr Price does not miss a trick. A right proper artful dodger if you like. With an aircraft-hangers worth of DJ dates behind him including a virtual residency on the continent where, like Dave Angel, he is worshipped like a long lost brother, and a string of exuberant techno cuts on both NovaMute and Boys Own, Darren Price’s debut album for NovaMute, ‘Under The Flightpath’, looks set to drag Darren from the shadows and a lifetime’s residency in the best kept secret club to the premiere division. Birds, booze and a private jet beckons. Well, maybe.
Like a legion of kids who have gone on to transform the trajectory of musical history with their beat box fuelled visions, Darren was swept along by the electro boom of the early 80’s. Absorbed in a world of breakbeats, proto-raps and youths spinning on their mum’s best cuts of lino in shiney tracksuits, Pricey cajoled his mum into letting him experiment with sounds and beats on a set of antiquated decks in the family’s garage. “It was one of those old disco systems,” he remembers, far from dewy eyed. “It was awful, my mum was forever coming in to tell us to turn it down.” The rest was to follow, amateur attempts at graffiti, council sponsored breakdance events and the quest for the latest pair of trainers. With footballers and favourite uncles relegated to the lower divisions of the ‘ace folks’ league, Darren hailed a new set of heroes. For Pricey, Mantronix and the Sugarhill Mob now ruled the roost.
Yet the disparate pieces eventually slotted together in the late 80’s with lost weekends spent at the feet of the mad hedonistic rush that was acid house. Plodding through the doors of Shoom week-in week-out Darren was soon to acquire the vital spark that propelled him from observer into participant. “I wasn’t into it at the start”, Darren admits, “I then went to Shoom and had the most amazing time. I’d heard a lot about the place, but it was ages before I became interested enough to go. When I eventually did it changed my life.” The energy and will to be located slap bang in the middle of the rollercoaster ride of repetitive beats and drug fuelled grins led Darren to take things a bit more seriously. The disco unit was binned, Technics bought along with some odds and ends of primitive equipment and Darren Price mark one was born.
Taking on a job at a small promotions company next to the fledgling Boys Own, Pricey was ideally located. With the newly born Boys Own spitting out the likes of Weatherall, Rocky and Diesel et al, Darren soon began to pick up a gaggle of heavyweight supporters. With Weatherall initially picking up on the Price cause, Darren rapidly began to develop a sound reputation, eventually culminating in a well handy stint as Underworld’s official DJ, where he provoked the crowd into a slavering mess prior to the band’s arrival on stage on their 1996 World Tour. The marriage worked seamlessly and further enhanced Darren’s reputation.
So June 16th 1997 brings us to his debut album for NovaMute, ‘Under The Flightpath’, following on from his previous outings for the label, the highly respected ‘Attic’ and ‘Blueprints’ EP’s. After a variety of outings under a number of guises such as Boys Own Centuras, Darren has eventually ditched all monikers preferring to work under his own name. Working in a studio located slap bang under one of the main flight paths at the end of runway number one at Heathrow, Darren has refined the sound and energy of the various jets that rattle his windows and rock his foundations into a classical techno assault, that pays homage to Detroit’s innovators. Distinctly techno in it’s form, yet drawing upon his strong English lineage Darren has crafted a unique British techno creation full of peaks and troughs and enough emotion to fell Cilla Black at fifty yards. Not content to rely on the hard and direct route favoured by many, Darren has wheeled out an album that fluctuates from minimal assaults to warm, lush tracks drenched in emotive string arrangements and heart warming sound stabs. If Juan Atkins moved to West London he’d sound like this.
So it seems with Darren unlikely to roadtest his latest offering we will have to be satisfied with basking in it’s lush, dense soundscapes. Having created an album that could quite happily sit alongside Carl Craig’s ‘Landcruising’ the UK has eventually found a techno pioneer to be proud of, an individual who is able to expertly manipulate his machinery to produce raw emotion that so many miss in favour of cold, hard and direct assaults. The unassuming fellow from West London looks set to conquer. Iron Maiden management please note: Darren Price will not be available for any future tours. Any daughters needing slaughtering should be forwarded to Mr Ozzy Ozbourne. Thank you.
Snippets:
soon
Full Track Streaming:
“Holdback”
Special:
“Dubbin Inna Lockdown Dj Mix”
Recommendations:
Depeche Mode’s “Ultra | The 12 Inch Singles” w/ Price remix on Mute
Darren Price’ album “Under The Flightpath” on NovaMute
Buy Download:
Darren Price @ Bandcamp
iTunes
more soon
Commercial Streaming Services:
Tidal
Spotify
Anghami
Apple Music
Deezer
Youtube
Websites:
Darren Price
Darren Price @ Instagram
