Leftfield UK dance stalwart Richard Norris has been in the game since the early days of Acid House, but unlike his peers Andrew Weatherall and Erol Alkan, Norris has maintained (and seemingly purposefully fostered) an air of relative anonymity.
The driving force behind The Grid, The Time & Space Machine and as half of Beyond The Wizard’s Sleeve (his collaborative project with Alkan) Norris has been able to explore the wavier, psychedelic angles of House and Techno with reckless abandon and little accountablility by virtue of his aliases.
The anonymity has become a double edged sword which has offered him total freedom but has also essentially robbed him of well deserved notoriety. Given the success of like minded artists like Daniel Avery, Timothy J Fairplay, Alkan and Weatherall, Norris has thankfully decided to make himself known via a ripping new EP for New York’s unflappable Throne of Blood.
Freaks is a viciously chuggy warehouse workout that highlights everything Norris has been about for over 2 decades. An extraordinarily fitting release by which to finally introduce himself to the world, the title cut, and it’s wicked reworks (including one from Weatherall’s Hardway Bros,) throb with all the energy of a rave thrown by all the gangs in the Warriors and a repetitive choral bit that reminds the listener that “Freaks control the city.”
Norris is undoubtedly one of the freaks…hallelujah.