Whenever I write a post about an artist I try and read as much about them as I can and listen to as much of their back catalogue as I can find. In this case, it just isn’t possible. Some 15 or 16 years ago, All City co-founder, Irish DJ Splyce was in New York doing some crate digging. Outside Fat Beats two dudes shop him their demo. Splyce takes the tape home with him, and nothing is heard of it till now. These days All City is making waves, having featured on this very blog some months back for its Martyn/Mike Slott release, as well as giving us the undeniable summer jam from last year, cooked up by Krystal Klear and remixed by Hudson Mohawke, and that’s just for openers. Splyce is in Japan these days, and this tape recently surfaced in a house move. So what’s the next logical step? Share it with the world. And how lucky we are.

The tape is a delight. Fourteen short pieces that move from hazy grooves and repeated vocal samples about “handling business” and “digging in the crates”, it’s funky head-nod shit that makes you smile. The thing is, no one can contact these guys. Maybe it’s the inherent mystery that makes this release so exciting. Maybe it’s the delight in uncovering something from the mid-90s that sounds so of its time, yet realising that this sound, the warm, dusty, sample-heavy instrumental hip-hop is still so prevalent that it could have been made by some experimental bedroom producer last week. Either way, it’s a big gesture for the label to put this out there, all the while hoping that The Midnight Eez reappear from the shadows. The 12″ dropped a few weeks back, and you can cop it from All City themselves, but it just popped up on Turntable Lab so who knows how this story will unfold. I for one am going to be keeping this on rotation throughout the summer, that’s for sure.

The Midnight Eez – Childhood Memories (ACTMELPx1) by allcitydublin