VA - David Holmes: Late Night Tales

"Few individuals fit the mould for a much-loved, artist-curated compilation series quite as comfortably as David Holmes. From his globetrotting, hugely influential DJ career to his genre-hopping solo output via soundtrack work for the likes of Steven Soderbergh and Steve McQueen, the Belfast polymath has the quintessential markings of a Late Night Tales curator. Doubling up as a feature-length breather of sorts following two decades of activity and crate-digging, Holmes’ addition to the series is a quiet triumph of meditative poise and restraint, underscoring his reputation as a savant whose appetite for curio, collaboration and the deepest of cuts continues to hold him in good stead...

...Rather than simply invite one to slumber, David Holmes impels the listener to cut themselves some metaphysical slack on his Late Night Tales. Conjuring both a sense of Nietzschean Eternal Return and the aboriginal concept of Dreamtime, this is music to be listened to on a solitary stroll just as the evening starts to bleed into the night. It’s music to submit to on good headphones whilst quietly rejoicing in the ever impenetrable, fucked-up madness of it all. It’s music to seek out when some respite from all the blurred lines in this very busy world is desperately sought. In taking our hand but never gripping too tight, Holmes taps into something that even the best Late Night Talescompilations sometimes neglect: the pure self-therapy of total escapism." - The Quietus