It's 10:40 At Least Twice A Day

10:40 aka Jesse Fahnestock released Transition Theory on Valentine’s Day. It was love at first listen and I’m going to tell you why.

“How much of what you were playing did you know you were going to play when you sat down?”

“Uh, none of it”

 

The sample in the early seconds of Tumbling Down, the opening track on Transition Theory, could be interpreted as both a statement of intent and a key to the hour-or-so to follow. I will start by saying that whilst the album is available as 11 individual tracks, the essential way to listen to Transition Theory is the full immersive experience of the continuous mix, available as a bonus track when you get the album via Bandcamp. And despite Jesse’s generous encouragement to name your price/pay nothing, I say the opposite. It’s worth every penny of your hard earned cash.

 

In the promo for Transition Theory, Jesse shared that “It's an album inspired by DJing, and the new sounds that emerge from the transitions in the mix, written and recorded in order, with each song using the end of the previous as its starting material.” In that sense, I’m reminded of the ‘exquisite corpse’ method first used by surrealist artists applied to art and then writing and favoured by many musicians, notably Bauhaus. This is particularly evident when you listen to the individual tracks separately, for example Ninety-Now’s left turn into The Engineer. It's also arguably the raison d'être of many DJs and it lends the continuous mix of Transition Theory a kinetic energy that keeps you engaged and anticipating where the aural pathway will lead you next.

 

The tempo builds from one track to the next, Tumbling Down’s languid introduction escalating through Ninety-Now and The Engineer, pausing briefing for Picking Flowers, before picking up the pace again with Jimmy Ripp and racing into Sunday’s Cool, with it’s swirling, pulsating, just-below-the surface sample of “What goes around comes around / round and back again”. The latter is a characteristic of 10:40’s music that I particularly like, the use of samples submerged in the mix, teasing and inviting you deeper into the music without ever distracting from the environment that they inhabit. At this point, I also realise that I’m thirty-five minutes into Transition Theory and the end of the first half, side, phase, however you wish to describe it.

 

Regime Shift Dub tells it how it is, the sample of “I can’t stop him now” seeming equally apt for the listener and Jesse himself. Smoke The Demon is a cracking track, at times transporting me back forty years to those electronic sounds that first grabbed my attention as a teenager. I’m reminded of Kraftwerk at their most urgent or Dead Eyes Opened by Severed Heads but at the same time this is indisputably the sound of 10:40, right now.

 

At The Turning Of The Tide is another unexpected left turn, it’s opening chords at first suggesting to me the theme to The Magnificent Seven of all things (!) before sidestepping into a 70s keyboard vibe. Both red herrings of course, as soon as Matt Gunn and Emilia Harmony’s vocals come in to a pulsing beat. “How long do you think you’ll carry on?” asks Matt. “I will come back to you, but you’re gonna have to find me first,” replies Emilia. Brilliant stuff.

 

There’s a further pause for breath at the foot of The Mountain, a gentle, tingling tune with a rumbling bassline before Mantis changes back up a gear for the final flight to the end. If the 1981 sci-fi film Escape From New York were to be remastered and re-released with a newly commissioned score, then Mantis should definitely be on it. A sublime closer to a wonderfully rewarding set.

 

I was introduced to Jesse’s music in 2021 during lockdown via previous 10:40 album, All Of Us - not his debut as I insisted on calling it back then, that was 2020’s Found Time - and I’ve subsequently bought his prior and subsequent music. What’s been a real pleasure to experience is Jesse’s evolution as an artist. Transition Theory will be familiar if you’d listened to and enjoyed 10:40 previously but it is also an album that challenges, surprises and delights on so many levels. 

 

If you were unfortunate enough to miss the 10:40 advent calendar at the end of last year and haven't previously sampled some of the 10:40 back catalogue, you can hop over to my Dubbed selection from May 2022 for a taster. Then get yourself quick smart over to Bandcamp and buy the album with the bonus continuous mix and prepare yourself for one hell of a ride. You won’t regret it.