<p><span><span>- The pandemic has put most of us a bit off our game, but as an artist management and booking agency, one based in Melbourne no less, <strong>WAT Artists</strong> -with their beats-focused and star-studded roster- has just had their regular game yanked right out of their hands. So, what have those idle hands been up to? Playing a different game!</span></span></p>
<p><span><span> I don’t think WAT was even in the record label business before now and their Bandcamp page has just one release on it. That’s their very first compilation, <em>At Clouds Length. </em>Managing artists is like herding cats at the best of times, so perhaps a project to get a huge chunk of their management roster to collaborate on creating new material, online, isn’t that much of a stretch. There might even be some advantages, I mean, they’re not exactly going to disappear on an unexpected holiday, are they? </span></span></p>
<p><span><span>As it turns out 2020 has been a fruitful year for compilations, taking a format that had been fading in the face of streaming’s natural talent for pick’n’mix and giving it new relevance. Where many large projects years in the planning have had to be shelved, labels have been left to scrounge up smaller fragments from across their rosters which, taken together, have been surprisingly good.</span></span></p>
<p><span><span>With WATS’ sixty or more high-profile artists to solicit contributions from, there’s lots of names you’ll recognise and probably a few you’ll want to get to know, pleasant surprises to be discovered in the festival atmosphere. It’s not really a surprise that a lot of the contributions here come from artists who have already released things this year, but it doesn't sound like album offcuts. There’s lots to tickle your fancy -too much to talk about certainly- and I don’t want to spoil all the surprises, so I’ll just point out a few things which grabbed my attention. </span></span></p>
<p><span><span>It starts off strong with a team-up featuring neo-soul mainstays <strong>30/70</strong> and producer <strong>Alex Albrecht </strong>(of <strong>Albrecht And La’Brooy</strong> among others). Their cut <em>Breaking Tense</em> is, happily, what you might expect: 30/70 bring the soul and Albrecht the ambience and they tie up the partnership through their shared interest in jazz and beats. It might seem like I’m playing favourites when my next grab is a 30/70 collaborator, drummer <strong>Ziggy Zeitgeist</strong> who appears with his own band (<strong>Freedom Energy Exchange</strong>) and producer <strong>Loure</strong>, suturing together a bleary, sentimental, slow and low piano part with house diva backing vox and a lively patina of skeletal rhythm; some musical opposites which definitely attract, on the track, <em>Keep In Touch. </em>I don’t mean to be mean, but <strong>Kris Baha </strong>seems to be the dominant partner in his pairing with <strong>Morgan Wright</strong>; the label manager and DJ mainlines his passion for industrial strength darkwave on the unexpected turn into the shadows that is <em>Need 2 Breed (Veneto Club Edit).</em> On a tip which is almost as dark, live drum’n’bassers <strong>Big Yawn</strong> team up with murky rave duo <strong>Sleepy D </strong>on <em>Packet To Plate </em>maximising both atmosphere and energy by playing off propulsive electro against an ethereal dub. If Big Yawn don’t bring their d’n’b to the party the triple-team-up of <strong>Georgia Bird </strong>and <strong>DJ Sarah </strong>(appearing as <strong>In2stellar</strong>) with <strong>Mike Callandar </strong>immediately make up for it on <em>Dreamworld Syncrasy. </em>Easily one of my favourites, it blurs the line between heavy breaks and d’n’b, while soaking the whole thing in more of that echoing dub. </span></span></p>
<p><span><span>I suppose the biggest achievement here is that this record happened at all, WAT are to be commended for bringing together all of these people, presumably without ever seeing most of them. In a year of virtual discos, <em>At Clouds Length </em>is like a virtual super-club: endless rooms, so many that there was no way I could visit them all here. To paraphrase a classic line, we may still be dancing in daggy pants, in our lounge rooms in suburbia, but as long as we are, we’ve got plenty of beats for the purpose.</span></span></p>
<p><span><span>- Chris Cobcroft.</span></span></p>
<iframe style="border: 0; width: 100%; height: 120px;" src="https://bandcamp.com/EmbeddedPlayer/album=2428188228/size=large/bgcol=f…; seamless><a href="https://watrecordings.bandcamp.com/album/at-clouds-length">At Cloud's Length by WAT Recordings</a></iframe>