[Perlon]

Baby Ford once said, “Voices on tracks have always been part of the sound, but that’s all it is, part of a whole sound.” “Gravy Train” and Soul Capsule’s “Waiting 4 A Way,” a track Baby Ford co-produced with Thomas Melchior in 2007, help us to understand this relationship of parts to wholes when it comes to vocals and instrumentation. There are similarities between the voices on “Gravy Train” and “Waiting 4 A Way,” both in execution and concept. Linguistically, they share a sexual “come on” croon, they’re worked with effects in equal measure, and both have been released as a cappellas. This last commonality suggests a logic where the voices are no longer just parts of a whole sound, but have become a whole sound in and of themselves.

There’s a transparency to the a cappella in dance music. By themselves, they stand starkly naked, existing under the microscope for their potential to be remixed. Not only are their durability and mutability assessed for instances of appropriation, but their fitness to the original works considered. You wonder if the track lived up to the a cappela’s potential; you make a comparison between extant and ideal circumstances. As parsed details, a cappelas function as invitations to deconstruct the multi-tracks into their components and understand how the gears make the clocks tick. At first I thought “Gravy Train” sounded too similar to “Waiting 4 A Way,” but that was missing the point. In realizing the voices are being held constant, it became easier to note the records’ differences: the percussion of “Waiting 4 A Way” having more to do with Melchior’s style than Baby Fords’, the bounce of Baby Ford’s organs in “Gravy Train” — a signature of his since “Noddy” on BFORD 9. The parts and their microscopic details are built up into a dense sound that defines these records and the maxim that a sum can be greater than its parts.

“Waiting 4 A Way” is a crown jewel for both Soul Capsule and Perlon, and as much as “Gravy Train” catches its vibe it’s just not as revelatory. Fortunately, there’s some sense of urgency from Baby Ford to break new ground on the B-side, “No Day.” The track’s got several things going for it: Larry Heard-like keys for one, but perhaps the main thing is it’s quite nearly a song — that is, there’s an implicit musical relationship to the oratory. But there isn’t a voice on “No Day,” only the micro sounds that suggest a cappela. The “scat” on “No Day” sounds rooted in the twee of Aspect Music. It’s mildly cheesy, but you get a sense Baby Ford clearly had some fun with this one, and that there’s a story being told here. I started off this review with a quote from Baby Ford, and I’ll close with a quote by Thomas Melchior/Baby Ford, which is actually a remix of a famous “a cappella” by T.S. Eliot: “We shall not cease from exploring and when we come to an end of all exploring we shall return to where we started and know the place for the first time.” For Baby Ford, his most recent 12″ seems like a transition point, both a return to BFORD 9 and Aspect Music, and a progression of a sound nascent in Basking in The Breaklights and culminating in “Waiting 4 A Way.” However, “No Day” is also a point of departure from this progression, and if the quote holds true, hopefully Baby Ford will one day return to “Waiting 4 A Way” where something new and revelatory happened.