Three Suns – Twilight Time (Melting Pot Echo Edition)
As you might have gathered if you listened to the all 45 mix I made for my 45th, I recently bought a new mixer and that mixer has an echo effect button that I’ve been having way too much fun with. Because I’ve never considered myself much of a technically skilled DJ, I’ve never had a need for a mixer with bell and whistles, opting for the no frills simplicity of the Numark “Blue Dog” when I first bought turntables 21 years ago, and later “upgrading” to a Numark M2. I think the catalyst for me finally breaking down and getting a new mixer with echo effect was the “Slow Burn” candlelight listening sessions that Cut Chemist did during the early stages of lockdown. Instead of mixing into new songs via the crossfader, Cut would apply the echo at the end of a song and as the echoes were fading away into the night, he’d take the finished record off the turntable, replace it with the next one and drop the needle on the next song just as those previous echoes disappeared. While it’s not like the use of an echo effect was new to my ears, there was something about the simple elegance of that move, and the very specific sonic quality it created, that I found wildly alluring. Since listening to music with the lights off in my home (what I call my “Lights Off Listening Sessions”) has been one of my favorite nighttime activities during this moment, I eventually felt a need to recreate that sonic feeling here as well.
Having the extra effects buttons has been a bit like getting a new toy when you’re a little kid. It’s a gas just to play around with the echo, instantly psychedelifying whatever tune is playing, regardless of genre. What I’ve found is that, one, it’s very easy to get addicted to applying echo to EVERYTHING, but also, two, adding the echo can sometimes change the way you feel about a track. As a case in point, The Three Suns’ “Twilight Time” was a massively popular instrumental from 1944, but it’s not even remotely one of my favorite tunes. I only even have a copy of this 45 because it was sent as packing fodder for another 45. But with the echo applied from start to finish of this thoroughly beat up copy, augmenting every snap, pop and crackle, as well as the waves of moody organ and vibes, it becomes a blissed-out fever dream of a song, worthy of inclusion in a David Lynch film. I’ll try my best not to go overboard with the echo in years to come, but I hope y’all don’t mind this particular indulgence and feel what I feel when you hear it…