Review
Genre and Mood
Nightmares On Wax made “You Wish” downtempo with a funk walk: a trip-hop producer’s idea of a strut, groovy and relaxed, confident without raising its voice. It is three and a half minutes long, short for an album whose tracks often run past six.
Song Summary
“You Wish” is the sixth of the twelve tracks on In a Space Outta Sound, the fifth Nightmares On Wax album, released by Warp in March 2006. It was not one of the album’s singles, which were The Sweetest, Flip Ya Lid and African Pirates. The track is built from very little. Gigwise described a simple arrangement: a guitar-lick sample spliced with noodling organ, a funky strut “awash with NOW calm”, which at first sounded to the reviewer like something lifted from Hendrix’s All Along the Watchtower. PopMatters heard slow, languorous guitar work that could have, and probably did, come straight off a 1960s funk record. Neither review names the record.
Musical Breakdown
No source we found walks through “You Wish” section by section, so this breakdown follows the three elements the reviews describe.
The Guitar
The sampled guitar figure is the track’s centre. PopMatters heard it producing a ready evocation of tension, and judged the track half as long as Damn, the one before it, and twice as satisfying.
The Organ
Around the guitar, in Gigwise’s description, runs noodling organ, the other half of the splice.
The Groove
Consequence heard a surrounding swagger that gives the track a groove in which to breathe and grow, “though it never really does”, and then hands over to Deepdown, the next track.
Concepts in Focus
sampling is how George Evelyn built much of his music, and “You Wish” shows how little a sample needs to be: one guitar lick, set against organ, can hold a whole track. Compare Nightmares On Wax – Les Nuits, built on a loop from a Quincy Jones record.
groove is the feel of the rhythm, and here it does the work a melody or a build would do elsewhere. The Consequence review’s complaint, that the track never grows, is also a description of a groove that is content to stay where it is.
Artistic Context
Nightmares On Wax is George Evelyn, a DJ and producer from Leeds who has released on Warp since the 1991 debut A Word of Science. He is based in Ibiza. His 1995 album Smokers Delight placed 15th on Fact’s list of the best trip-hop albums. PopMatters heard In a Space Outta Sound as a middle ground between the stiff soul of Mind Elevation and the lushness of Carboot Soul.
Impact and Reception
The album reached 93 in the UK and 12 on Billboard’s dance albums chart. In 2014 “You Wish” opened the first disc of N.O.W. Is the Time, the compilation celebrating his 25-year career, and gained a video in which Evelyn walks through dissolving geometric shapes; its description calls the track a fan favourite. Put it on and let it stay put.
