Part of Me

"Part of Me" finds Todd Edwards in a more contemplative register than some of his more energetically constructed productions, the vocal sample work deployed here with greater spacing between events, allowing each chopped fragment more room to resonate before the next arrives. The emotional territory is interior and searching rather than celebratory — the quality of the title phrase, the way it can be read as possession or identification or loss, is present in the way the vocal material is arranged, something being held and examined and turned over. Production-wise the track demonstrates Edwards' characteristic attention to the relationship between the high and low frequency elements, bass warm and rounded in the house tradition but with a flexibility of movement that reflects the 2-step influence that was developing in conversation with his American aesthetic. What distinguishes "Part of Me" within his catalogue is a particular patience — the willingness to let the groove establish itself over an extended period before introducing variation, trusting that the foundational elements are interesting enough to sustain attention in themselves. The vocal sample technique here fragments phrases that sound devotional when reassembled, snatches of gospel or soul singing cut into phonemes and rhythmically realigned, producing the impression of a spiritual feeling without its doctrinal content — pure devotion as sound rather than belief. Edwards' influence on UK garage is documented and substantial, and tracks like this one explain why: there is a formal sophistication in the sample work that the UK scene absorbed and extended, and that continues to circulate in UK dance production decades after the original recordings.