(TCR/Inertia)

Needing little by way of introduction, the name “Rennie Pilgrem” comes with an automatic association with “breaks”, so closely are the two aligned. Whilst perhaps eager to shed his “Godfather of Breaks” tag, Pilgrem’s mission as a DJ and producer has long been to bring his beloved breakbeats to a wider audience. Pilgremage represents a new mindset for Pilgrem, a mindset steering away from the techier and glitchier “nu school” train of thought. He seeks change by adding live instrumentation for warmth and recapturing his love of funk rather than rely on subsonic bass frequencies to carry a tune.

Opening tune Attention extends a little longer than a simple quirky introductory jangle. Rather it’s an almost three minute acid jazz style tune fuelled by the saxophone warbling of “Spence”. Defender was the first single off the album, coming out late in 2003, and is recognisable by its summery guitar lick, live bass strumming (by Rennie himself on a vintage Fender Precision) and softly distorted dancing synth lines. It’s a subtle stormer and a highlight for the album. Tracks like Sanctified play with the live instrumentation, in this case with its electric guitar riff, but don’t quite have the same impact.

Pilgrem goes punk rock, in a very distorted electro kind of way, with Gladiator. It’s almost rock sounding beat and heavily distorted electo basslines add a distinctive feel and are representative of Pilgrem’s effort in trying something new. It’s the following track however where he really hits the mark. Musically it’s a lot subtler, allowing for the gorgeous voice of Sarah Whittaker-Gilbey to soar through on the track Coming Up For Air. A track he road tested before release at Field Day 2004 to rapturous response, no doubt due to it’s uplifting feel.

A Pilgrem collaboration with Los Angeles producer Uberzone usually equates to a club land monster and Fuego looks to doing nothing to prove this tried and tested theory wrong. Huge acid synth waves with tough beats ensure this will keep the feet on the dancefloor. A surprise highlight is upcoming single and collaboration with MC Chickaboo (of Two Freaks fame). Chickaboo’s glam style delivery perfectly suits the celebrity mocking vocals, musically it sounds like a very funked up mix of tribal, disco and breakbeat. This one’s bound to be a dancefloor hit.

The track way out of left field, in terms of preconceived Pilgrem associations, is Atlantis, which has more of a chilled out Ibiza feel to it than dancefloor breakbeat. Once again featuring the saxophone of Spence, though this time with a smoother deliver, and live double bass playing from Sandy Burnett, it provides opportunity for Pilgrem to further explore music off the dancefloor.

Also included on the album are two bonus tracks. The first is Acid Part 3, which revisits the territory of his early career defining A Place Called Acid. The second bonus is the monster remix Pilgrem did of Zero’s Emit/Collect, a track that needs little by way of introduction as it’s received it’s fair share of play and then some.

All up Pilgremage is worthy of a listen for any breaks fan and given Pilgrem’s status and perceptiveness within the scene, it’s no doubt an indication of where things are heading within the genre. The highlight of the album is seeing Rennie exploring outside of the genre boundaries for which he’s known and hopefully this is a starting point for future production work.