Desire: The Carl Craig Story

The soundtrack album to Jean-Cosme Delaloyes documentary about Detroit techno legend Carl Craig spans the artists entire career, dating back to the late 80s, and includes some of his most well-known tracks as well as rarities that hadnt been available digitally. Appropriately, the collection captures the cinematic side of Craigs work, often including tracks with long, atmospheric buildups, or no drums at all. A percolating remix of Slams "Azure" takes half of its ten-minute running time to arrive at a beat, and the blissful yet slightly anxious "At Les" floats on a cloud before the drums kick in. The deep-space techno meditation "Galaxy" is an inspired choice, as well as the breakbeat melancholia of "Desire" and "Bug in the Bassbin"s tumbling jazz drum loops, which greatly inspired the U.K. drumnbass and broken beat scenes. Craigs Grammy-nominated remix of Junior Boys "Like a Child," which slowly teases the songs vocals for several minutes before the beat drops, remains one of his more addictive productions. The digital version of the soundtrack, which includes several more cuts than the CD or vinyl editions, goes a bit more into Craigs collaborative side, including a track he produced as part of Sherard Ingrams Urban Tribe, a jazzy house collaboration with Moritz von Oswald, and a track he mixed (but didnt write or produce) for Recloose. There are also selections from Versus, a 2017 orchestral revisit of some of the producers key tracks, and the shimmering "A Wonderful Life (Version)." The set concludes with the patient, rippling "Meditation Four," originally released as part of an ambient suite included as the third disc of the 2013 Ministry of Sound mix/compilation Masterpiece: Created by Carl Craig. Similar to other soundtracks for documentaries about musicians (like, say, The Velvet Underground: A Documentary Film by Todd Haynes), Desire: The Carl Craig Story isnt meant to be a conventional best-of compilation, but a well-rounded selection that fits the films narrative and hopefully offers a different perspective about the subject. In this case, it touches on Craigs club-driven side, but more often emphasizes his status as a composer of hypnotic, deeply felt material that takes the listener on a voyage. ~ Paul Simpson