Showing posts with label 1996. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 1996. Show all posts

Monday, August 22, 2022

Jet Chamber - Jet Chamber II

Fax +49-69/450464: 1996

Where to even begin with Uwe Schmidt? He gained some minor fame after making an album of Latin-fused electro-pop covers of Kraftwerk songs, but the man had a solid decade of music making behind him before that. Those more in the techno-know were undoubtedly familiar with Atom Heart, if for no other reason than it was the alias Uwe most commonly goes with for his multitudes of projects and collaborations. And though he jumped about many labels throughout the '90s, he often came back to Fax+ for an album or three, even teaming up with Pete Namlook on occasion. In fact, some of the print's earliest records were a pairing of these two, cranking out bangin' Belgian techno as Subsquence and Synthadelic. Um, no one really talks about these anymore. That Jet Chamber project though, that's the stuff!

Five albums were released under this banner, remarkably unique from one another, misters Schmidt and Kuhlmann clearly unafraid in exploring different sounds with each outing. Yeah, you could say that about a lot of their works, but even with the numerous musicians Namlook paired up with, there always was a bit of consistency in how each one sounded. Not so with Jet Chamber. Say you liked the vintage ambient techno of the first album, but are you prepared for the pure jazz dalliance of the fourth record? Or rather preferred the dubbier, trip-hoppier vibes of the third LP, but not so much the micro-beats of the fifth? Which to choose, which to choose?

Clearly, I went with Jet Chamber II, and not just because it was the one I saw available for a reasonable penny from a Discogs seller. No, I've often noticed it crop up in a fair number of 'Essential Fax+ Albums' lists, so figured it a solid get regardless. And right from the jump in Inner Rotation, you can hear you're in for something outside the Fax+ norm. Well, at least what I'm used to hearing from this label, but then I haven't deep-dove into the entire catalogue – few ever have.

Anyhow, Inner Rotation drops us right into Atom™'s brand of electro-IDM beatcraft, leading us along for a good five minutes before Namlook's vintage space-synths join the fray. It's honestly rather typical of Pete's many pairings, his partner laying out their distinct approach to rhythms while he handles the melodic portions. What makes Inner Rotation stand out so much more is just how fluid it is, forever morphing and ever changing even at a lengthy eighteen minutes. Like liquid chrome constantly burbling, bleeping and blooping.

It's also the requisite 'clubby' track of the three, followed upon by the requisite 'pure ambient' outing of minimalist Calm Box. Can't be a classic Fax+ album without one of those, nor a half-hour long jam session, closer Outer Rotation serving as such. It mostly consolidates the first two tracks' ideas, which is fine if you want to hear more of those electro-IDM beats, but I prefer the 'concise' songcraft of Inner Rotation.

Wednesday, January 12, 2022

Loop Guru - Catalogue Of Desires

North South/Hypnotic: 1996/1999

It took me damn near a decade, but I finally got another Loop Guru album! Not that the group is some ultra-obscure, super-underground, impossibly niche act with a music catalogue rarer than cerium, but they haven't much luck in North American distribution either. For whatever reason, Waveform Records only brought over Duniya, while alt rock and industrial print World Domination Recordings handled Amrita. Not exactly the most compatible fusion of genres there, though considering alt rock label Mammoth Records distributed Banco de Gaia's early albums here, maybe that's just how things rolled for world beaters in the States.

By the end of the '90s, however, World Domination had folded, so Loop Guru turned to “release whatever we can get our hands on” print Hypnotic for State-side handling of their album The Fountains Of Paradise. Guess that has them rubbing shoulders with 808 State, System 7, and FSOL in that department. The label also re-issued Catalogue Of Desires Vol 3, an album a few years old by that point, and had seen limited distribution by World Domination prior. Swell beans for those who may have missed it the first time around, which is about the only reason I can see for this one getting a re-issue, as I doubt anyone but fans of Loop Guru would be interested in this record.

Don't get me wrong, it's certainly an interesting outing from the group. Though quite adept at uptempo tunes, Loop Guru truly gained their rep with long-form, meditative, ambient dub jams, so it's only natural they'd take the concept to LP length. The Catalogue Of Desires series was their outlet for exploring such sonic roads, the first two originally only available on tape (they've recently been uploaded to Bandcamp). Vol. 3 was the first to try making some hay from these excursions with CD roll-outs, but since that'd be too confusing for Americans, Hypnotic just called this one Catalogue Of Desires.

Twenty tracks in total make up this album, but calling them all 'tracks' is being generous, several minute-long interludes breaking things up between the groovier centrepieces. Even then, many longer tracks are mostly ambient outings with manipulated orchestral sections or sampled Far East music. Long stretches will pass by where you'll either feel lost in a deep trance, or spinning wheels. I'm naturally more of the former, making Catalogue Of Desires a bit of a challenge to indulge a full listen without completely zoning out. Fortunately, proper world beat tracks like Catalyst, Almost, Susleone, and Out Of The Dark Room do a good job knocking you out of such a doze.

In some ways, Catalogue Of Desires reminds me of FSOL's many Environments albums. There's the loose, free-form music making, multiple tracks of wildly varying length, and psychedelic tongue-in-cheek titles (After Dark With The Reef Tones, Nature Of The Whole, The Pear-Tree Illusion). Obviously, Loop Guru are rougher around the edges on the production department, but still, conceptually kindred spirits with latter-day FSOL just the same.

Monday, September 20, 2021

Spicelab - Spy Vs. Spice

Spy Vs. Spice: 1996

And that's all the Spicelab albums gotten. Yes, as strange as it may seem, Oliver Lieb only ever released three LPs under this alias. You'd think there'd be more, what with it being his break-out project and all, one that helped define German trance in its infancy. It was something of a contentious one though, seldom getting much shine abroad, much less promotional push from Harthouse. Spicelab tracks were just a little too weird, a little too sci-fi pulpy, a little too unwieldy for DJ rinse-outs, especially so those lengthy album cuts. When L.S.G. became his most popular (and likely lucrative) project, it pretty much took all of Lieb's attention. So long, Spicelab, then.

As for why it's taken me so long to finally get Spy Vs. Spice, there's a couple reasons. One, it's not a very common CD. Ol' Oliver had to basically self-release the album, setting up his own short-lived Spy vs. Spice print to do so. Two, and it hurts to say this, but I kinda' already did hear much of this album many moons ago, and I wasn't especially keen on it. Oh, of course Spicelab was among my initial AudioGalaxy inquiries, don't act surprised. With so many out-of-context tracks failing to grab me, I let it slip to the recesses of my memory membranes. Maybe I'd give it another chance down the road if I ever found it on the cheap.

So I found a copy on the cheap, and perhaps with age and experience, I'd finally dig on what Lieb was doing with Spy Vs. Spice. Opener Spice Like Us bodes well, doing that vintage Spicelab thing of moody, atmospheric lead-in, settling us into the future-shock realm this alias doth often dwell. The rhythm's more on a tech-house tip (when such a thing was still being hashed out on Plastic City), just in a Spicelab-ey sort of way. Spice Peak and Glue Gun though, I dunno'. They sound like they could be great, leftfield electro and techno, but all the abrasive sounds on display just refuse to coalesce into something enjoyable.

Fortunately, the good ship Spicelab rights itself with the titular cut, a no-nonsense slice of pummelling techno where even the weird sounds make sense. Following that is Feathers, the closest thing to an obligatory progressive trance single this album has to offer. Even here though, the hook stubbornly refuses to play nice, playing out in quite the unconventional fashion. Or maybe I've just been spoiled by the Humate and TLBj remixes.

Bad Rabbit gets back to the earlier weirdness, but at least feels like it has some momentum behind it, while the final run of tracks close out with more traditional Spicelab trance vibes. Despite the difficult start, Spy Vs. Spice finishes strong enough to warrant a full listen. I can't really say it's a lost classic in the Oliver Lieb canon though, especially with L.S.G.'s Volume 2 being released that same year. Even the Spicelab 'influenced' cuts on that album are better.

Wednesday, March 3, 2021

Westside Connection - Bow Down

Priority Records: 1996

Remember a time when this album was one of the biggest rap records around? Listening to it a quarter century on, it seems almost quaint, a relic of a bygone era of gangsta tropes that never transitioned into the next century. Bow Down though, wasn't so much a CD you bought to jam in your headphones/car/bicycle-with-boombox-in-basket, it was a statement. That you were down with flashing the 'W', westsi-i-i-de for life. Yes, even pasty-ass white-bread teenagers living in the hinterlands of Canada. Erm, not that I got this because I felt the need to 'represent' or something. I just liked the beats on here.

There's something utterly primal about the bare-bones g-funk on display in Bow Down, chiefly a simple thudding beat and punctual farty synth piercing the bass. Yet its effect in getting the heads boppin' and the hands waving is astounding, with Ice Cube sounding as fired up as he ever had. Mack 10 and WC, two chaps who had honed their skill with their own projects under the tutelage of Mr. Jackson's extended crew, knew this was a make-or-break chance for them, raising to the challenge with ease.

With that hot opener, you'd think this three-piece had been a tight-knit posse for years, a showing of strength from the West Coast that had been hinting at cracks forming as the '90s wore on. Yeah, 2Pac was one of the biggest names around, but much of Death Row Records was crumbling, all the while Ruthless Records was rudderless without Eazy-E. There were others out there, but things always came back to what the original N.W.A. crew were cooking up, of who'd be the leaders out there.

From the titular opener, Bow Down (the album) doesn't do much to shake the formula up. There are a few call-out tracks (All The Critics In New York, Cross 'Em Out And Put A 'K, the Cypress Hill diss King Of The Hill), and some lady mackin' cuts (Do You Like Criminals?, Westward Ho). Mostly though, it's Cube, Dub-C, and Mack-Daddy bragging about how gangsta they are, and how the West coast is the best coast. Again, hardly revolutionary stuff, but at a concise ten tracks with just enough variety between them, Bow Down never overstays its welcome.

Possibly the most brilliant moment comes mid-album, where The Gangsta, The Killa, And The Dope Dealer samples the opening guitar from Nine Inch Nails' Hurt. All the while WC gives a gang howl into the 'hood, painting an almost Gothic portrait of 'Killa Cali' street life. Gang-banging never sounded so picturesque.

With such a strong opening statement from Westside Connection, surely only future fortunes favored the trio, but their follow-up seven years later failed to capture the same hunger. Ice Cube and Mack 10 were more drawn to Hollywood by that point, while WC never quite broke out with the same level of fame. Still, he seems to have had the most productive album career post-Millennium. Might be worth a listen-in.

Saturday, May 16, 2020

Fatboy Slim - Better Living Through Chemistry

Skint/Astralwerks: 1996/1997

For a time, I considered this the superior Fatboy Slim album: no overplayed hits or blatant crossover appeal. Norman Cook's big-beat debut was pure underground t'ings, for the underground heads who kept things under the ground. Or something.

Then I came to learn of Mr. Cook's storied career, how he'd been responsible for the goofy Pizzaman project, and that his Fatboy Slim moniker was just the latest (and most successful) of a long line of chart-topping achievements. Goodness, does that mean everything I thought and believed about this album was a lie, a misled assumption that couldn't be helped due to the lack of available knowledge while residing in such a far-flung corner of North America? Must I re-assess my enjoyment of Better Living Through Chemistry?

Well, there is an air of bandwagon jumping here. Cook broke out the Fatboy moniker with the single Everybody Needs A 303, a fun acid jam for sure (and a winner of a title!), but clearly riding on the wave of acid anthems that Josh Wink's Higher State Of Consciousness set off. Not that I suspect insidious intents in making the tune on Norman's part. Nay, here's a silly one-off alias for a one-off single and oh my God, this thing is blowing up in the clubs! Maybe there's some potential after all.

UK interest in breakbeats that sounded as big as rock 'n' roll of yore was taking off, and sampling funk and soul was always a major part of that scene. Well, ol' Norman had a woodshed full of records from years of DJing he could pilfer. Surely there's enough material there to knock out a full-length album's worth of 303 retreads? Well, maybe.

I'd honestly forgotten how loopy this album is. Yeah, they layer and build and all, but compared to the songwriting leaps the Fatboy project took in subsequent albums, this is some raw, basic stuff. The second half in particular doesn't do much to dispel the notion Better Living Through Chemistry was made mostly in service of capitalizing on a big single. The chill, psychedelic outing of Santa Cruz and trip-hop funk of The Weekend Starts Here show off some diversity, but generally there's only so much acid builds with big breaks can do before it all starts sounding the same.

Fortunately, the Astralwerks version added a couple winners, some of my favourite Fatboy Slim jams ever! Michael Jackson is Norman at his best with cheeky sampling, rockin' leads, and wailin' hooks with beats to back 'em up. Meanwhile, Next To Nothing is another chill outing like Santa Cruz, and a strong, proper capper on an album that originally got redundant by Milwaukee's end.

Whether Better Living Through Chemistry doesn't hold up as well as I remembered is irrelevant though, as its status as a Very Important record is already enshrined. The Chemical Brothers' Exit Planet Dust may have kicked off big beat, but this solidified it as a genre with big things ahead of it.

Friday, March 6, 2020

Lamb - Lamb

Fontana: 1996

(a Patreon Request from Omskbird)

Like everyone else, I just automatically assumed Lamb to be part of the trip-hop lexicon. Look, when the first track you come across from them is paired up with a Portishead cut, you'd make the association too. I'd see the group's music on numerous downtempo/lounge/chill-out compilations over the years since, though Lord Discogs tells me I only have one of their songs, on the Canadian 'electronica' CD RU Receiving (Górecki, naturally).

My lack of overexposure led me to believe Lamb was a group that got a little lost in the great trip-hop wave of the mid-'90s, one that folks would recognize by name (because how could you not? 'Lamb', it just rolls off the tongue!), but could never reach the commercial highs as the big Bristol acts. And that was true for the most part, their subsequent albums after this doing only modest chart action in the U.K. to say nothing of their global impact. Except Portugal. For some reason, Lamb were huge there, possibly bigger than even in Britain. Hey, sometimes one's sound just clicks with a specific culture.

What I never realized – and probably should have given how Górecki sounds, but eh, context – is Lamb really aren't trip-hop. Elements of it, sure, with a few tracks definitely fitting the mould (Trans Fatty Acid, absolutely). As I listen through their debut album though, I hear closer lineage with jazzstep than anything downtempo. But the vibe doesn't quite gel with the d'n'b scene either, songs definitely more laid-back than the frenetic pace of your Goldies and Roni Sizes. Yet, even when those producers were doing more chill, jazz-soul outings, there was always a sense of urgency and bite in their tunes. Not quite so with Lamb, the busy rhythm-work making better sense in smokey lounges than a warehouse filled with junglists. Less rinse-out tools, more songs that you should sit down and soak in with.

It probably helps that singer-songwriter Louise Rhodes is a permanent fixture of Lamb, thus her lyricism an involved component of their songs than whatever some guest vocalist can whip up for a track or two. And she certainly shows her range here, bellowing when sampled orchestras swell, or bringing things down to a whispery, husky coo when the album goes soft and quiet.

Meanwhile, Andrew Barlow does a fair bit of chop-n-slice production with numerous jazz and orchestral samples, sometimes breaking beats down to near IDM levels of stuttering (so much backspin in Cotton Wool, just so much). As mentioned, it gives many tunes off here a level of kinetic energy you didn't really find in most trip-hop releases, which undoubtedly gave Lamb an extra edge over their contemporaries. The genre was in need of some evolution by '96 as it was, and Lamb certainly provided that. Small wonder they found plenty of success on the compilation market after. Okay, a record deal with Mercury didn't hurt either, the label anxious for their own Portishead after that group won their Music Prize.

Sunday, January 19, 2020

Gas - Nah Und Fern: Gas

Mille Plateaux/Kompakt: 1996/2008

(a Patreon Request fro Omskbird)

Technically, this was supposed to be a review request for the Gas album Königsforst, originally released on Mille Plateaux way back in 1998. I sniffed around for a decently-priced copy, but as you can imagine, such a CD isn't cheap to come by these days. I could have sprung for a digital copy instead, but in my searching, I noticed the Gas re-issue box-set Nah Und Fern had come down to a reasonable price, and thought to myself, “Eh, why not?” Thus, I'm now reviewing the entire catalogue of Mille Plateaux Gas albums, as released by Kompakt. So... not quite the original albums, but I'll get to that ...right now!

Yes, of all the Gas albums to be tweeked for the box-set re-issue, the self-titled debut saw the most changes. Two tracks were replaced, one for perhaps the better, the other not so much, depending on who you ask. Hey, at least the rest of Gas was retained, which is more to be said for the more recent Gas re-issue box-set titled Box, wherein Gas was completely jettisoned in favour of inclusion of the Oktember EP released during the original run of Gas albums. Of course, with the subsequent release of additional Gas albums following Box, there's always a chance another Gas box set could emerge which will bring back the original version of Gas. Heck, maybe even throw in the original-original Gas EP, Modern, released on Profan, though Wolfgang Voigt has made it clear that sound is too far removed from where he took the project for revival consideration.

And what, pray tell, is the Gas sound that has made so many slightly pretentious sorts quiver in their headphones? Drone ambient, mostly, though done in a rather clever way, wherein mood and memory are invoked more than the usual abstract sound paintings the genre aims for. Why, there's even techno beats on some of these tracks, though minimalist and heavily subdued and dubbed out, such that they reverberate from distant locations obscured by dense forest and fauna. Wolfgang has stated he wanted to capture the feeling of wandering through the woods while indulging psychedelics, and I must admit, hearing these cavernous beats with embers of melody over looping drone does remind me of taking the back paths between stages at outdoor music festivals. You recognize the base details, but they're all mushed into an unending wall of sound, only trace musical elements coming through.

As for the replaced Gas III, I'm not surprised the original was taken out, almost a conventional dub techno track compared to the layered tones the other tracks featured. Instead, Gas III does the pure, crackly dronescape thing, with a sporadic, slowed string pluck. Quite reminds me of the few items I've heard out of the Slaapwel Records camp, though about a fifth the running time. Still, I wouldn't be surprised in the slightest if some of those musicians took inspiration from these Gas pieces. The ones without the techno beat, anyway.

Saturday, July 20, 2019

HIA | Biosphere - Polar Sequences

Beyond/Biophon Records: 1996/2019

I'm not sure which I figured would be more difficult to attain, this or The Fires Of Ork. For sure almost any Biosphere collaborative project seemed elusive to my isolated eyes, but I always had a sense that maybe, just maybe, I'd land me a copy of Geir's team-up with Bobby Bird. The label that initially released Polar Sequences was Beyond, they of the seminal O.G. Ambient Dub series, and I'd landed myself a couple of those CDs, not to mention later albums via domestic distribution. Logically then, odds were good that this would see a domestic release. Unfortunately, Beyond's time was up, and only a few thousand copies of Polar Sequences were made, a rather small amount back in those days. Mind, not so limited as Fires Of Ork initially ran, but that saw a number of re-issues down the road, whereas this saw but one when Bobby Bird tried launching his own label, Headphone. It didn't pan out so well. Too ahead of his time, mayhaps? I mean, it's not like Geir's Biophon Records is much different in concept, and man, what a roll he's been on with the reissues, eh?

In a strange way, it's only fitting that HIA and Biosphere would team-up. During the rise of bleep-affected ambient techno, these two were odd men out, name-dropped as part of the Artificial Intelligence contingent, but never signing deals with Warp Records. It likely helped them carve out distinct voices within that scene, but nothing to suggest they'd mesh in any significant way. Which makes Polar Sequences all the more strange. Yeah, bringing Geir back to his homeland for a musical performance was a given, but Bobby too? What could he contribute to the Polar Music Festival? Maybe they were just vibing at the time, and Mr. Jenssen wouldn't do the gig without Bird in tow.

So to Tromsø they headed, about as remote a location in Norway as one can get without crossing significant Arctic waters. They took a little cable-car to the top of a mountain, recording things and sounds along the way to be used in their performance. Once there, and with small contingents of Nor-folk funnelling into the little hilltop cabin, HIA and Biosphere fused their muses into a suitably cold, brisk collection of dubby electronics, brittle melodies, and cavernous field recordings. And hoo, I could never have imagined their styles would mesh so fluidly.

Bird mostly handles the rhythm end of the music, which is great because HIA's beatcraft was forever on point for downtempo tunes. That leaves Biosphere the atmospherics, where his icy dronescapes have ample breathing room within Bird's dubby electro. As with Fires Of Ork, there are clear sections where one producer's style dominates over the other, but always in service of the particular composition being performed. That Meltwater though, holy cow, is that ever pure Geir, almost entirely field recordings of being trapped by a trickling stream inside a collapsing glacial cavern. The germination of Substrata definitely starts here.

Thursday, June 20, 2019

Harold Budd - Luxa

All Saints: 1996/2018

So I got myself a box of Budd. I was stunned to discover such a thing existed, and kinda' relieved too. There's just so much Budd to sample out there now, different flavours for different moods, such that one can get lost figuring out where to begin. And yeah, I've sampled a little Budd in the past, toked on the obvious flavours as cultivated by Brian Eno. There's so much more in Budd's bowl than The Pearl and Ambient 2 (The Plateaux Of Mirror) though. Sure, I'll find myself in familiar territory of calm, soothing haze of pleasant piano tones no matter which album I dab on, but surely there's a bluffer's guide of his various musical crops. Indeed there is, the Budd Box, with six albums from his first fifteen years of releases. Yeah, that's but a third of Budd's total output in that time-frame, but as I said, I'm after a bluffer's guide, not a compendium.

By alphabetical decree, the first album I'm reviewing in the Budd Box is Luxa, which also happens to be the last album in the Budd Box. Or rather, the most recent, released in the near-times of 1996. Considering this box-set was initially released in 2013, it seems funny that the Budd Box only went that far into his discography. No interest in any of his post-Millennium material? Though considering there isn't a detailed Wiki entry for Luxa, it's fair to say even his more well-known works retain but a niche audience to this day.

I do wish there was a Wiki for Luxa though, in that this is an odd-ball album, and I'd love to have more background info on it. Harold himself calls it a “decorative thing”, in that it's him exploring different facets of his various musical backgrounds, in that artsy sort of way you'd expect of a student of the minimalist avant-garde.

Thus we get four segments in Luxa, the first of which is titled Butterflies With Tits - I think that's the title of the cover-art too. The longest segment, it features pieces titled after various artists in various fields (Agnes Martin, Serge Polakoff, Paul McCarthy, Anish Kapoor... you may have heard of some of them), and touches on the various keyboard tones Mr. Budd had since incorporated into his repertoire. It ain't just 'soft pedal' pianos, yo'! There's moody pads, flowing synths, and even some light jazzy percussion too.

Following that is the ultra-short Inexact Shadows segment, three short piano pieces that you'd probably think was one, single, two-fifteen minute composition. Smoke Trees, on the other hand, gets into the pure ambient side of Budd's muse, long drawn-out pieces noodling about in a calm, abstract manner, a little light percussion joining the pads and organ tones every so often. The final segment, Laughing Innuendos, features a weird contrast between its two pieces, Marion Brown doing the modern classical piano thing, and Steven Brown doing a ...piercing organ thing? Gosh, that tone almost sounds 16-bit. Oddly familiar, that.

Saturday, March 2, 2019

OutKast - ATLiens

LaFace Records: 1996

Now this one, I was under no delusion it'd sound like Stankonia. No one in hip-hop sounded like Stankonia in the mid-'90s – heck, very few sounded like Stankonia when that album dropped, though I'm sure there's an outlier or two that could be pointed out as the true originator of 'southern trap-rap crunk-jungle soul'. Point being, though Stankonia kinda' numbed the enjoyment I should have had with Aquemini, I knew fully well ATLiens would be its own beast, meaning I could take it in under its own terms, expectant hype be damned.

No, wait, that's not entirely true. I knew ATLiens had its own high amount of praise, though for different reasons. An album that showed there was something creative and ingenious brewing in the lands of Georgia. An album that proved southern rap could be more than a bunch of booty bass and ghetto-cheap beats. That Wu-Tang Clan didn't have a monopoly on comic book iconography. Okay, maybe not so much that last one, but man, doesn't Big Boi look like he'd fit right in with a team-up with Method Man or Ghostface Killah? Right, they settled on Raekwon in Aquemini, but for sure the seeds of a major coastal crossover event were planted here. Also, Andre 3000 as a genie, but there were wacky sorts in hip-hop before him. He just started flying his own freak flag for ATLiens.

So if there's any disappointment to be had from my end regarding OutKast's sophomore album, it's that they didn't push the envelop quite as far as I was led to believe. The package screams ultra nerdcore concept outing, and given the general plaudits heaped upon it, I figured it a game-changer not just in the lexicon of southern rap, but all of rap. Nay, it's instead treading ground already being charted by the likes of the Hieroglyphics crew and other 'backpack rappers' of the time. And hey, totally a departure of what was expected from the south, so that's good enough, right?

Right. I don't need to hear Boi and 3000 rapping about their intergalactic escapades as portrayed in the booklet's comic. Hearing them waxing tales about living in Atlanta is good enough when the flows are this dope and the beats are this fine. ATLiens is best served as a deep southern fried slice of chilled-out vibes, perfect cruising material for hot 'n muggy days just trying to get by. There are moments of introspection, moments of booty chasin', and moments of good ol' simple head-boppin' – all under a thick THC haze as imported from somewhere beyond the outer reaches of your being. Or something.

It's a strange journey I've taken in exploring OutKast's discography. I came in when they were crossing over, but before they'd truly broken through the mainstream. The further back I dug, the simpler they seemed, but somehow more interesting too. Still, not sure I'm up for Southernplayalisticadillacmuzik. That one seems too straight-forward, and I need my OutKast a little askew.

Wednesday, February 6, 2019

Motorbass - Pansoul

Motorbass: 1996

(a Patreon Request from Omskbird)

There's folks that claim without Motorbass, there'd be no Daft Punk, or even a French house scene vital enough for Daft Punk to have succeeded. Bollybark is what I say to such claims, though it's undeniable that Monsieurs Cerboneschi and de Crécy got a good head start on most in the lands of francophone. How can someone not hear the old UMM cut Home and think, “yeah, that's some fine French action right there and wha...? 1993??”

Yet while the chaps behind Motorbass would go onto bigger things in separate projects (Ceroneschi as part of Cassius; de Crécy's own solo output), their Motorbass material didn't get much notice outside their homeland. It was Daft Punk's success that had everyone digging through France's back-catalogue of house releases, after which some realized that hey, there was more going on around Paris clubs than most realized. There's a reason why their lone album Pansoul became hailed one of the best “lost albums” by NME, and “the most important album in French house” by Spin. Magazines love proclaiming something earlier and comparatively 'underground' such things. Still, those are indie rock rags, and what do they know? It's not like Muzik Magazine was bigging this album up (did they? I can't find it in the .pdf archives; lots of Daft Punk love tho').

Now, I did come to know of Pansoul's existence, mostly thanks to the slew of reissues in 2003 (Virgin and Astralwerks got in on that action). Of course, I didn't buy the album, but with all that hype of it being some long-lost precursor to Daft Punk's success, my curiosity was indeed piqued. And what I heard was indeed house music with a French slant, but hardly the ultra-filtered sample 'n loop stuff that came to define it (somewhere, DJ Sneak once again angrily shakes a fist). Except Les Ondes and Wan Dance anyway, which does the filter funk better than many that came later.

Coming back to this over fifteen years later and without those stupid expectations the re-issue hype sullied me with, I hear Pansoul as less a landmark French house album, but rather a house record that finds itself on the crossroads of what house music was doing in the '90s. There's unmistakable influence from the Masters At Work bump-n-grind vibe (Flying Fingers, Pariscyde, Bad Vibes), plus the dubby cinematic European soul that marked much of that continent's forays into deep house (Ezio, Neptune, Genius). Throw in an obligatory trip-hop opener with Fabulous, and you'd think the Nineties-ness of Pansoul is complete.

Yet it doesn't really sound stuck in that decade either. By not necessarily adhering to any given trend, nor catapulting a burgeoning one as their French countrymen did, Motorbass released an album that stands unique and apart, a melting-pot of what was and was to come. It's the sort of record you'd expect released after all the dust had settled, not before. Which it did, once the reissues kicked in. Crafty marketing, that.

Thursday, January 24, 2019

Various - Ambient Ibiza

EMI Music Canada: 1996

I'd found a new genre to love, and even lucked out scoring a few early gems showcasing the stuff, but only on my twice-or-thrice a year trips to Vancouver. The rest of my time remained in the ends of Canadian earth, and good luck finding any music shop having something with “ambient” in its title. Fortunately, I'd started working at such a music shop, and had access to our supplier's catalogue. Promising my boss that I'd buy whatever came in, I eagerly flipped through the compilation selection and put in requests for anything that had “ambient” in its title. Some of those items ended up being compilations from Hypnotic (who knew!), but also included was this particular CD, Ambient Ibiza. And hoo, seeing that cover art when it first arrived, did I ever wonder if I'd made a mistake in such blind enthusiasm. Surely I would never make such a mistake in the future, ha-ha, ha!

So this looked rather corny, and when I threw it on for a listen, the opening track, care of CD compiler Sergio himself, with a saccharine pad tone and woman intoning “Tell me... what you dream”, and I feared I'd ended right back in the domain of Pure Moods, a domain I'd emphatically left behind. Couldn't deny though, it sold the Ibizan vibe nicely, feeling like I'm chilling on a Mediterranean patio with a cocktail in hand. Then Bindu's Light At Heart came on, with a surprisingly melancholy pad, heartbeat pulse, and lonely acoustic guitar. And gosh, though it still sounds very Pure Moodsy, something about it stirs the heart/soul/spleen. Like, I recognize it's sap, but a good kind of sap, the kind that can be turned into delicious maple syrup.

From there, Ambient Ibiza warms you over with a variety of chill-out tunes that never lose that Balearic feel. Lucky People Center's Woman Is Like A Fruit goes a little sultry nu-jazz, D.O.P.'s Manifest Your Love could almost fit on a collection featuring early Massive Attack and Soul II Soul, and upbeat Van Basten's Perimitive (Part 1) lays the naturalist field recordings on lusciously thick – feels like I'm wandering an arboretum filled with birds of paradise.

And wouldn't you know it, there's a single tune on Ambient Ibiza that could just fit on one of those 'underground ambient dub' CDs I was so enamoured with, Dub Tractor's Overheated Livingroom. Yeah, it's got that overtly chipper Ibiza vibe to it, but works just enough dubby melodies and rhythms that give me the THC-buzz without even toking a jay. Also, that breakdown! *melt*

Other dubby tracks on here include music from The Gentle People (haha, a Rephlex tune on a compilation like this) and Mind Over Rhythm's Big Warm Glo (a collab' with Plaid, of all things). That's more than enough to convince my younger self Ambient Ibiza really ain't so bad after all. Still a little too sickly sweet for many plays, mind you, but enjoyable enough for occasional summer afternoons.

Thursday, December 20, 2018

Various - Alien Ambient Galaxy

Hypnotic: 1996

When did I first discover Bill Laswell? This CD right here, which is funny, because it's not indicative of his larger, massive, ginormous body of work. I mean, only one track of the featured eight even has much of his distinct bass playing – it's a super long track, but still, just one. I probably heard him prior, but had no clue he existed, if that makes sense. You can hear some musicians – especially sessions musicians – in a multitude of songs without ever knowing who they are. Sure, one could study liner notes of every booklet and Discogs entry to know every performer ever, but man, who'd want to?

Had little choice with Alien Ambient Galaxy though, the only credits offering nothing but liner notes. Hell, the back cover just lists all the players involved, with no attribution to the list of tracks. For all you'd know, everyone performed together as one big conglomerate. Bill Laswell, Jah Wobble, Jeff Bova, Alex Hass, Pete Namlook, Liu Sola, Buckethead (yes, that Buckethead), Robert Musso, Mick Harris, and Nicky Skopelitis are... Alien Ambient Galaxy!

But no, that's not the case. In fact, only three projects actually make up this compilation, all of which Laswell had some hand in, care of his short-lived Subharmonic print. Most prominently featured is Divination, a world music, ambient drone project that could be considered a proper conglomerate of musicians. There's four tracks of the group here, but they're mostly subtle, droning pieces, serving more as transitional tracks between the other ones. I'll talk about them more at a later date, but again, I must give a flustered name-drop in seeing Buckethead's there.

A few other tracks are from Cypher 7, a duo consisting of Hass and Bova, with Laswell performing “navigation & ground control”. These are more interesting, giving Alien Ambient Galaxy some needed diversity and flair. Conspiracy Of Silence opens the CD with mysterious, ominous tones, feeding into alien paranoia that was so popular in the '90s, while The Suspicious Shamen does an upbeat ambient dub thing with piano flourishes. Nothing Lasts, meanwhile, features a bouncy beat while French actress Jeanne Moreau drunkenly laments about lost passion. Not sure how it ties into an alien ambient concept, but it's a cool sounding tune nonetheless.

And finally, clocking in at over thirty-eight minutes, is one of Bill and Pete's Psychonavigation outings – the lengthy track with the lengthy title of Psychic And UFO Revelations In The Last Days. It features Laswell's bass, Namlook's space pads, a simple dubby rhythm, a lot of dithering passages of music interspersed with sci-fi effects, and strangely hypnotic throughout its runtime. Plus, it contains dialog from the DS9 episode Emissary, so instant awesome right there.

Strange presentation aside, Alien Ambient Galaxy is a nifty little collection of tunes if you like your ambient on the mysterious side of things. Even with the amount of Laswellian music I've since heard, this still remains a remarkably unique offering of what he's made within his vast discography.

Wednesday, November 14, 2018

KMFDM - Xtort

TVT Records/Metropolis: 1996/2007

KMFDM were on the verge of a mainstream breakout, the likes of which seldom seen in the industrial scene. Like, if teenagers in the hinterlands of Canada were now familiar with your tunes, it wouldn't take much to push your careers into the rarefied air breathed upon by Trent Reznor, Rob Zombie, and Al Jourgensen. Never mind that such commercial popularity is antithetical to the industrial mantra, you gotta' grab that brass ring in the one opportunity it comes around. Naturally, in their follow-up to the breakout album Nihil, KMFDM did the only sensible thing an industrial thrash-rock band should do: step back from the brink of all that was commercial and untrue.

Oh, Xtort was still a commercially successful album, indeed their highest charted record ever. That's almost certainly due to the positive buzz previous singles like Juke-Joint Jezebel generated though, all that hot soundtrack licensing getting folks into the stores searching for the latest KMFDM album. The turnaround from Nihil to Xtort was quick though, the band's ninth album hitting the shelves just a year after (and Symbols came a year after that ...KMFDM were a studio machine in the mid-'90s). Thus when folks were looking for the latest KMFDM album, it was probably Xtort they first saw – the return of iconic Brute! artwork didn't hurt either.

If you fear you're inching just a tad too close to the domain of pop, however, then one must get back to the raw, aggressive thrash that could only be loved in the underground. And KMFDM done did that, Xtort one of the heaviest albums the band had produced to that point (ever? I haven't heard enough of their post-2000 material to know otherwise). That didn't stop TVT Records from aggressively promoting the album, not to mention 'suggesting' the band make at least one radio friendly jam in lead single Power. Band leader Sascha Konietzko makes no bones it's a “dumb and catchy” tune, what with an ear-wormy hook and 'soul-mama vamping' singing from Cheryl Wilson on the chorus. Didn't stop him from making a similar track in Inane though. Really, Mr. Konietzko seemed to have a lot of fun both praising and trashing Xtort in his own promotional cycle. Oh, you know there were some doubters creeping into the fandom following their crossover success – the industrial scene's ridiculously anal about such things. Why else would Sascha do such a pisstake on Xtort's promo?

Then you get outright thrash tracks (Apathy, Son Of A Gun), the jack-booted industrial stompers (Ikons, boogie groover Rules), some nods to the burgeoning digital hardcore sound (Craze, Blame), plus a couple spoken word portions too. Dogma has anarchist poet Nicole Blackman spouting some anti-establishment rhetoric over thudding, marching beats, while secret song Fairy is a cheeky, dirty children's tale recited by Jr. Blackmale over piano. It'll make you laugh, if not blush.

So a solid album, all said, KMFDM delivering a properly aggressive response to their commercial success. Take that, wishy-washy fans!

Friday, June 29, 2018

Spacetime Continuum - Emit Ecaps

Astralwerks: 1996

The whole kerfuffle surrounding a dodgy re-issue of Jonah Sharp's Sea Biscuit did result in one positive: rekindling my interest in his old Spacetime Continuum project. I always assumed it was among those nigh-impossible to acquire discographies, released in ultra-limited fashion or on hopelessly obscure labels. Well, Sea Biscuit was on Fax +49-69/450464 (among other collaborative works with Namlook), and Mr. Sharp did have his own print, Reflective, which was about as underground as it got back-when (though the lads at Ninja Tune liked them). In any event, preconceived notions confirmed, amirite? Yeah, then I learned Jonah was also signed to Astralwerks, possibly one of America's longest, most respected electronic music promoters. They partnered with the almighty Virgin, fer' crise'sakes! How an ambient techno guy got signed to a label that promoted the likes of Chemical Brothers and Fatboy Slim blows my mind, but then Astralwerks did lean that way at their start too. Couldn't resist those almighty Virgin dolla's tho'!

And as Astralwerks was plenty profitable during the compact disc's glory years, there's plenty copies of Spacetime Continuum floating about, making gathering some vintage Jonah Sharp far easier than I'd ever have anticipated. I haven't gotten all the albums, mind you (that collaboration with Terence McKenna seems a little too out there for my interests), a couple mid-'90s items suiting me just fine. And as always, alphabetical stipulation starts us off with one of Mr. Sharp's lesser known works, his alias Emit Ecaps. No, wait, that's the name of the album, Emit Ecaps just a couple one-off tunes for compilations. What does 'emit ecaps' even mean? I keep thinking drugs.

As for the album, Emit Ecaps, you can definitely tell it sprung from the mid-'90s, when electronic music scenes were frequently cross-pollinating, yet it's rather timeless too. Opener Iform gets down with that funky electro business, but doesn't sound retro in the slightest. Follow-up Kairo starts off in ambient techno's lane, but somehow gradually morphs into jazzstep d'n'b before shifting onto an ambient dub path – Sharp sure makes good use of the twelve minutes dedicated to this track.

And the genre fusion doesn't let up. While electro, Detroit techno (of course) and dub tend to dominate Sharp's aesthetic, there are nuggets of other genres scattered throughout too. Out Here spends a significant chunk of its time being flighty, bleepy space ambient before dropping some solid techno thump for its final minute. Vertigo has some kind of jungle-breaks bleep ambient techno thing going for it (and is pretty darn dope while doing it). Pod pairs grumbly technobass with floaty electro melodies, perfect for cruising the Oceanus Procellarum Boulevard. Funkyar could almost be a tech-house track, if it didn't stutter-pause its rhythm so often.

Listening through Emit Ecaps, I realize it's perhaps a tad too 'IDM' for the sort of customer base Astralwerks had started cultivating in '96, which sadly caused it to slip through the cracks. There's no excuse overlooking this little electro gem these days though.

Sunday, February 4, 2018

Various - United DJs Of America, Vol. 5: Frankie Bones - Brooklyn, NY

DMC: 1996

And... we're already in some discrepancies regarding this series. I have in my possession Frankie Bones' contribution to United DJs Of America, as worthy as any US-born jock to get the nod. However, two versions of his entry exist, one with this yellow background, listed as Vol. 5, and another with a red background, listed as Vol. 6. Which is the real deal?

Both, kind of. This series had US and UK distribution, but for some reason, the UK skipped on the double-disc outing of Vol. 4 featuring David Morales and Frankie Knuckles, thus gimping the sequence for a couple years before Mark Farina's Vol. 9 set the timeline back in order (man, is there anything Frisko Disco can't do?). Cover art aside, there's no difference between UK-Vol.5 and US-Vol.6, though considering the red one's got all the Discogian comments attached, I suspect it's considered the proper-deal – it is the American version, after all.

As for ol' Frankie The Bone, he needs no introduction since I've talked him up plenty now. For a jock that was so instrumental in bringing rave music to the underground masses of the Eastern seaboard, it's surprising this was among his first major commercial DJ mixes. He'd put out several tapes prior, but the Discogian data's a little flakey on the exact dates of his other 1996 releases – for all I know, House Loop on Sm:)e Communications or Global House Culture Vol 2 on ESP-SUN Records hit the streets sooner. Still, fairly certain this was his first UK DJ mix.

And there's no beatin' round the bush with Bones' brand of bangin' acid techno. The kicks come hard and fast right out the gate, dudes like Tom Wax, Chris Liebing, and Commander Tom all doing the damage. A particular chap by the name of Michael Kores pops up frequently in this set, though usually under an alias, including Albion. Yeah, you can imagine my initial shock when I thought it was the other Albion (aka: Ferry Corsten) in a Bones set. Trance does get a cursory glance in the track Active Sensing from Lectric Cargo, yet another project from Norman Feller, but it's the relentless hard techno and acid we get through and through. We wouldn't have it any other way from ol' Frankie.

For this guest review, there's only one Brooklynite famous enough to review Frankie Bones, the Flatbush native Bugs Bunny! What, I didn't say they had to be human.

Bugs: Eh, what's up, doc'? Me, review music? Sure, I can do that. I know all the classics – Brahms, Beethoven, Bachs – and plenty of vaudeville too. Frankie Bones, eh? Hehehe, get a load of that name. What is he, a skeleton? Hehehe, better watch out for roving bands of Rovers. Frisky gangs of Fidos. This music is different from what I'm used to, but it sure does pep'. Hehehe, would make for a wonderful gag, placing headphones of it playing onto ol' Elmer's head while he's sleeping.

Tuesday, January 30, 2018

Jamiroquai - Travelling Without Moving

Columbia: 1996

The only Jamiroquai album you probably have, if you're American. Or Canadian. Or Australian. Or New Zealandian. Yes, Travelling Without Moving was the band's major global breakout, finally cluing the planet Earth into what the Brits had known for a few good years – that acid jazz thing is rather quite cool an' funky, y'know. What's funny is despite being their best selling album by several leagues, Travelling Without Moving never hit the number one on the charts, not even in their native UK. Granted, competition was fierce for such a coveted spot that year, including The Fugee's The Score, Spice Girls' Spice, Kula Shaker's K (um, who?), George Michael's Older (he was still popular there), and... wow, Alanis Morissette's Jagged Little Pill? She was obviously huge in Canada, but I had no idea the Brits also loved her that much.

So everyone knows Virtual Insanity, because everyone has seen the video for Virtual Insanity. Quite a few folks also know the retro-disco single Cosmic Girl, because cars. Some people might know the retro-funk of Alright and High Times, though I feel these singles would be better received in recent times, after hipsters and Bruno Mars made listening to such music culturally popular. Most of us on the Western side of the Atlantic weren't ready to accept non-ironic funk-n-soul back into our lives though (t'was all about that G-funk).

That's the singles, but if you're drawing a blank beyond the tracks that “had that cool video” and “was in that episode of Daria”, you can imagine how the rest of the album fared with general audiences. And that's a crying shame, because listening to Travelling Without Moving, you can hear there's some insanely talented musicians at work, fearless in their genre fusion even as the big, bold Billboards beckoned them.

Like, Didjerama, a pure tribal-dub outing with a didgeridoo lead! Then they follow it with more simmering didjeridoo action in the chill funk-soul session of Didjital Vibratations. Who does that on a 'pop' album, especially on the cusp of Spice-mania? Oh yeah, acid jazz guys, because they're all about finding the funk in whatever ways they can (it's not really a jazz genre).

Then there's funky Latin vibes in Use The Force, boppin' reggae vibes in Drifting Along, more disco vibes with the titular cut, more funk vibes with You Are My Love (wee, Moog action!), plus a couple soul outings too (Everyday, Spend A Lifetime). Because you need that love-makin' downtime when there's this much freakin' funk funkin' around. And just in case you forgot what year this came out in, Do You Know Where You're Coming From? gets in on that trendy jazzstep action. Can't be an acid jazz album without d'n'b, I guess.

Given it's sales numbers, it feels weird to say that Travelling Without Moving is an overlooked gem of funk and soul music. Considering the only thing most folks remember from it is an associated video though, that's sadly the case. No more excuses!

Thursday, December 7, 2017

The Oak Ridge Boys - Old Time Gospel Favorites

Curb Records: 1996

What, another one of these? This can't be good for the time-stream, me constantly plucked out of the year 2073 to review Oak Ridge Boys music in the year 2017. As I understands it, time flows like a river, ever moving with steady, forward momentum, events playing out more or less as the river's course intends. Disrupting that flow by time-travelling doesn't, by and largely, have much effect in The Big Picture. Me coming back here to write occasional blogger entries is no more eventful than tossing a pebble into an eddy. Even if my future-words had any significant impact upon your time, it's no more problematic than heaving a boulder into the stream. Enough to deviate the flow in a localized area, but the river carries on just the same. You'd have to initiate a truly calamitous situation to change the main course, like a flood or earthquake.

Still, toss enough pebbles in a short amount of time in a very specific spot, and little things can start seeming askew from the norm. The major events that lead to my time are still on track, but some of your sports stats are off. The Winnipeg Jets an NHL leader? The NBA's Eastern Conference having a better record than the West? For as long as I remember, that's not supposed happened! Ah well, so long as the Presidential Dog-Fucking Scandal still goes down...

Now, back to The Oak Ridge Boys, with their illionth gospel compilation. I mentioned the last one I reviewed was my first instance of repeat songs. Old Time Gospel Favorites is the second, and crushes Old Country Church in that statistic, including opening with the same song! Also here is When I Lay My Burdens Down, Farther Along, I Know Who Holds Tomorrow, and Lead Me To Calvary. That's half a tracklist I've already gone over, and the remaining songs aren't much different from their other country-leaning gospel ditties from the Nauty-Sixties. My Heavenly Father Watches Over Me does have a charming swing to it.

I'll grant some fairness to Curb Records, in that this came out in 1996, so beat those other labels to the market with their recycled songs. That's beside the point though, because my past self assured me I wouldn't be dealing with redundant repeats. Why'd I even get this?

It's the cover art, isn't it. Striking autumn colours, pastoral setting of a time long since lost. It draws you in, doesn't it, into a more innocent time, an existence where the worries of the world have no impart on the going-ons of the day-to-day concerns. Rise at dawn, tend to the farm, send the missus to the grocer for the dinner, ease back on the porch with a sated tummy full of stuffins. Congregate at the Sunday church to catch up with the neighbours, content in the knowledge there wasn't much of a care beyond those rolling hills of leafy trees. Truly, the bliss of ignorance.

Friday, September 15, 2017

Various - WipEout XL

Virgin: 1996

WipEout didn't introduce the world of gaming to electronic music, but it sure built one of the biggest, strongest bridges to its culture. The first game scored a coup in getting the legendary Designer's Republic to create its futuristic aesthetic, while Tim Wright of Psygnosis' music studio supplied several original techno and trance tracks that fit the vibe of racing at super-high speeds. It didn't hurt that a beta version of the game appeared in the 'raver' movie Hackers either.

Sensing they could do more nods to the burgeoning 'chemical generation', Psygnosis also licensed out a few tracks from prominent 'electronica' acts of the day, including Leftfield, The Chemical Brothers, and Orbital. This factoid wasn't seen as a major selling point for the game though, especially since the tracks never appeared on the American version of WipEout. When a sequel to the game was announced, however, the mighty Virgin realized they could license out a bunch of their signed acts to the game, giving them even greater exposure with a totally untapped gaming demographic. Throw in other 'rave culture' landmarks like Red Bull ads (when 'energy drinks' were still a new concept for the West) plus associated music videos, and you have one of the defining touchstones of 'electronica' in the '90s! Or just a fun racing game with kick-ass music.

I'm almost tempted to do two reviews of WipEout XL (aka: WipEout 2097), as the game version and soundtrack version do have differences. Most interestingly, the game features some ridiculously rare cuts from The Chemical Brothers and FSOL, not to mention the exclusive Cold Storage tunes from Mr. Wright. Maybe I'll save it for *gasp* video reviews.

As for the CD, the track list isn't too surprising if you know your mid-'90s 'electronica': We Have Explosive, Loops Of Fury, The Third Sequence, Afro Left, P.E.T.R.O.L., Firestarter, Atom Bomb. Actually, the Fluke single is somewhat different here, slower and with bigger beats than the video tie-in. Underworld is also repped, though by way of the ultra-fast, loopy Tin There (a sorta' remix of Pearl's Girl), and a remix of The Chem-Bros' Leave Home that somehow sounds nothing like either group.

Easily the most intriguing thing about this compilation are the two exclusive cuts that never appeared in either WipEout game: Source Direct's 2097 and Daft Punk's Musique. The former I can see either as a tune that didn't make into the game, or Photek getting his pals a little extra rub, being something of students of Mr. Parkes' approach to tech-step. That Daft Punk track though, it's totally a case of Virgin promoting one of their new acts. And why not, the French duo already making massive early buzz with their initial singles. Sure, Musique's “what if Plastikman did a house track?' vibe totally clashes with the rest of WipEout XL's roster of big beat, d'n'b, and Brit techno, but damn, feel that funky filtered low-end. Virgin's trick worked, as I couldn't wait to hear it on the forth-coming album!

Friday, July 28, 2017

Various - Wave Forum

Wave Recordings: 1996

Pretty clear why I got this. Still, obviously I knew this couldn't be a CD from Waveform Records – if anything the big 'Virgin Import' sticker was enough of a clue. Yet while word association's a powerful thing, even that pales compared to packaging, the CD coming in one of the the strangest jewel cases I've ever seen. A shade of... navy blue? Duke blue? Ultramarine? Zaffre? One of those, according to Wiki's 'shades of blue' chart. Add to that an inner casing coloured a hot neon yellow, and there's no way you're missing that packaging popping out at you on the shelves.

Apparently Wave Recordings went to bat for their vinyl releases too, each record painted in marble-blue. Top that off with half-page magazine ads in Very Important UK dance magazines, and you've one aggressive marketing campaign, one that must have miserably failed, as very few Discogian folk have any Wave Recordings' releases in their collections; Wave Forum has less than a half-dozen owners, yours truly included. Top that all off with a mere four items listed in their catalogue, and I wonder if all that fancy marketing somehow bankrupted the label, folding almost as soon as they launched.

The truly tragic thing about all this is the music Wave Recordings peddled, skint though it was, wasn't half bad. Make no mistake, throwing one's fortunes into a bloated trip-hop scene was practically doomed from the start, especially when leading with such no name acts like Cherry Orchard and Wintermute (they're from Bristol too!). Damn though, if Cherry Orchard's No More Nightmares doesn't get to me, what with Deborah Kimberley's 'broken-waif' vocals of feeling lost in her “slumberland” over a steady languid rhythm with slowly escalating acid. Wait, 303 tweakage in a trip-hop song? Sure, I'll go with that, and Wintermute's Black Box gets in on that action too, though it's clear they're aping Tricky in their heroin-paranoia poetry.

It's not all complete unknowns on Wave Forum, though we're definitely in ultra-obscure territory here. Kapta had a micro-hit italo-house single in Shine On, given a trip-hop rub on here. Rama 1, an alias of Caroline Abbey, also had a house non-hit on Cleveland City Records (based in Wolverhampton, West Midlands) called C'est La Vie, given a world-beat reworking here. Cannot deny those sweeping strings and emphatic gospel chorus at the end do rouse the cheese-ball joy out of my cockles, as only Rollo often does. There's a little loose trance on here too, Gravity Wheel another of the very few acts to get the marble-vinyl treatment with Wave Recordings. Tears In The Rain and Mistral are chipper, acidy little numbers, the latter even appearing on one of Rumour Records' Goa Trance collections after the duo signed to Distance. Not long for Wave Recordings, they were.

Wave Forum won't convince you this label was some unjustly ignored print, but it is worth a listen should you stumble upon it. Considering the open-market price for this CD, it can't be that rare.

Things I've Talked About

...txt 10 Records 16 Bit Lolita's 1963 1965 1966 1967 1968 1969 1970 1971 1972 1973 1974 1975 1976 1977 1978 1979 1980 1981 1982 1983 1984 1985 1986 1987 1988 1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2 Play Records 2 Unlimited 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 2022 2023 20xx Update 2562 3 Loop Music 302 Acid 36 3FORCE 3six Recordings 4AD 6 x 6 Records 75 Ark 7L & Esoteric 808 State A Perfect Circle A Positive Life A-Wave a.r.t.less A&M Records A&R Records Abandoned Communities Abasi Above and Beyond abstract AC/DC Ace Trace Ace Tracks Playlists Ace Ventura acid acid house acid jazz acid techno acoustic Acroplane Recordings Adam Beyer Adam Ellis Adam Freeland Adham Shaikh ADNY Adrian Younge adult contemporary Advanced UFO Phantom Aegri Somnia AEI Music Aes Dana Afgin Afrika Bambaataa Afro-house Afterhours Agoria Aidan Casserly Aira Mitsuki Airwaves Ajana Records Ajna AK1200 Akshan album Aldrin Alex Smoke Alex Theory Alice In Chains Alien Community Alien Project Alio Die All Saints Alpha Wave Movement Alphabet Zoo Alphaxone Altar Records Alter Ego alternative rock Alucidnation Ambelion Ambidextrous ambient ambient dub ambient techno Ambient World Ambientium Ametsub Amon Amarth Amon Tobin Amplexus Anabolic Frolic Anatolya Andrea Parker Andrew Heath Androcell Anduin Andy C anecdotes Aniplex Anjunabeats Annibale Records Anodize Another Fine Day Antendex anthem house Anthony Paul Kerby Anthony Rother Anti-Social Network Anzio Green Aoide Aphasia Records Aphex Twin Apócrýphos Apollo Apollo 440 Apple Records April Records Aqua Aquarellist Aquascape Aquasky Aquila Arcade Architects Of Existence Archives Arcturus arena rock Arista Armada Armin van Buuren Arpatle Artifact303 Arts & Crafts ASC Ashtech Asia Asian Dub Foundation Astral Engineering Astral Projection Astral Waves Astralwerks AstroPilot AstroPilot Music Asura Asylum Records ATB ATCO Records Atlantic Atlantis atmospheric jungle Atom Heart Atomic Hooligan Atomine Elektrine Atrium Carceri Attic Attoya Audiobulb Records Audion AuroraX Autechre Autistici Autumn Of Communion Auxilary Auxiliary Avantgarde Avatar Records Aveparthe Avicii Axiom Axs Axtone Records Aythar B.G. 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