The Vendetta Suite Cosmic | Balearic 3 Items

With the success of The Vendetta Suite’s critically acclaimed debut album ‘The Kempe Stone Portal’ - Hell Yeah Recordings proudly present the remixes, featuring long-time friends and collaborators David Holmes and Timmy Stewart. The 90s in Belfast spawned friendships and connections made across the barricades; a time credited with some of the most important and significant cultural moments in the history of the city. Club-nights including the Art college, regularly played by David Holmes and Iain McCready helped to spawn a new generation of musicians and DJs looking to make their mark; Including both Gary Irwin (The Vendetta Suite) & Timmy Stewart.

The Kempe Stone Portal is the long awaited debut album from long time musical adventurer The Vendetta Suite. It arrives on Hell Yeah Recordings on June 18th, and spans over 20 years of diverse musical experiments. In the words of label boss Marco, 'it's a nice ride.' Gary Irwin started dancing in 1990, when he was drawn to the dubbed out and psychedelic sounds of Andrew Weatherall and The Orb, at the same time falling for the forward looking house and techno played by David Holmes and Iain McCready at their regular nights at Belfast's Art College. After studying music technology and performing arts, Irwin gave Holmes a cassette of bedroom produced techno and it started a long and fruitful relationship that has continued to this day. In the intervening years, Irwin has been the in-house engineer at Holmes' Exploding Plastic Inevitable studio and label, has engineered and remixed with him, released on his labels and written music for his Holy Pictures album, all while picking up credits on labels like NovaMute, Sabrettes, 13Amp and many more. As time passed, Irwin explored non-dance sounds such as krautrock, library music, synth and 80s b-sides before more recently circling back to acid house, downtempo and Balearic. All of this and more informs this panoramic 12 track album, which is a testament to a life spent submerged in many different sound worlds. The Kempe Stone Portal opens on the ‘Neon Secrets’, which along with tracks like ‘Morning Star’ and ‘I Am The Ghost In My House’ betray Irwin’s love of wonky, shimmering experimental synth-pop musik. They are glistening tracks with heavenly harmonies that are truly life-affirming in their richness. Elsewhere, ‘Purple Haze, Yellow Sunrise’ is an homage to his early experiences of Balearic acid house music from the late eighties and early nineties with a not too subtle reference to the narcotics of the time. ‘Who Do You Love’ was Irwin’s first non-dance music production in 1998, a cover of The Jesus and Mary Chain's version of the Bo Diddly classic, with guitar feedback and distortion drawing you into a murky world of fuzzy sonics. 'Della Notte’ came 10 years after, with rumbling toms, bubbling synths and phased Rhodes making for a psyched-out post punk dub. Seasonal sleigh bells and obvious krautrock influences abound on ‘Christmas in Cologne’ while ‘Maybe Tomorrow’ is Air meets Phil Spector on a beach at sunset. ‘Warehouse Rock’ is a dubby acid track that follows on from where 2017 track ‘Shut Up Ya Dub!’ left off, but with a more experimental approach that found the artist limiting himself to a 303, drum machine, dub effects and samples. If King Tubby were to release on Acid Trax, this is how it would sound. Shorter tracks ‘Spring Blues’ and ‘The Adult Section’ were originally made for a modern library music side project and are brilliantly suspensory pieces of lush electronics, yawning chords and gentle rhythms that empty your mind of any tension. This is a storied album that traverses different musical worlds with style and skill. Some are old, some are new, but they add up to a long player that is both fascinating and timeless.

Hell Yeah's next vinyl EP is a first solo release since 2012 from The Vendetta Suite aka Belfast's Gary Irwin. It features six tracks all handpicked by label boss Marco from vast unreleased vaults that have already been played by David Holmes and Andrew Weatherall, and it comes with a great backstory.
Marco's first ever E was at a UK club in Wandsworth in 1995. Joey Beltram was supposed to be on but missed his flight, so instead David Holmes played an extended set. It won Marco over instantly and since then he has been an avid fan, in awe of Holme's game changing Essential Mix and snapping up all the releases on his 13amp label, including one by The Vendetta Suite, who was in house engineer at David Holmes' Exploding Plastic Inevitable studio.
Other tracks from the artist including cult b-side 'Hula Bop' became classic staples in Marco's sets as Balearic Gabba Soundsystem and so he recently reached out to the Newtownards man and told him all this via Soundcloud. After chatting, Irwin invited Marco to pick some tracks from his vaults and they are now presented here for the first time with the amazing artwork by Andrea Amaducci that combines the producer's sense of humour and the esoteric.?
Opener 'Sirius' sets a lush tone with its wash of rippling chords and soft rock grooves carry you off into a sunset. From there the charming spring time sounds of 'Tacos For Zowie' mix bumpy drums with guitar riffs, whistles and cosmic synths, and Just Like Joe is a flower power spy movie theme tune that races along with orchestral elegance.
‘Shut Up Ya Dub' slows things down with wobbly bass, tons of reverb and acid twitches and 'Eye In The Triangle' is an exquisite dub cut full of studio trickery and sci-fi feelings that Scientist would be proud of. Closer 'Colin Wilson Said' is a widescreen ambient cut with spread synths, distant arpeggios and an intergalactic feel that leaves you drifting in outer space.
This is a cinematic EP that draws on myriad musical styles and showcases Irwin's peerless studio skills.