In 1994, Detroit producer/DJ Dave Webb put out a fascinating 12" containing two tracks, "Elevate" and "Who Am I?" plus a couple of supplementary remixes. In his beatcraft, honed off the back of high school years spent as a mobile DJ in the late '70s, a run in the '80s spent digging for and DJing Italo, New Wave, Disco and House music (while gigging with Paul Johnson and Jeff Mills as Frequency Sounds), Webb found a sound somewhere between the late night minimalism of Theo Parrish and the jazz-referencing beat jams of J Dilla.
Prior to releasing "Elevate", Webb got real familiar with music technology such the Echoplex and the ASR-X Drum Machine , and began adding live rhythms and FX to his DJ sets, eventually evolving that process into a home studio set-up. And, yes, it was the sort of home studio were you record songs by overdubbing on two tape decks. Pressed as a short run promo, "Elevate" sold out quickly, and caught some play time on the scene before drifting out of focus for a couple of decades. Thanks to Mixed Signals, it's back. Spend some time with this obscurity from the mid '90s, you'll find it has a lot of charm and flavour.
"Elevate" by Webb is out now in 12" and digital formats through Mixed Signals (order here)