Various - Big Dirty Beats 2: Bigger Dirtier Beats

Moonshine Music: 1999

Here's an audacious proclamation: Big Dirty Beats 2 may very well be the last, great big beat compilation ever made. Yeah, the genre still had some life in it for a number of years after, and the big players in big beat kept releasing albums for decades longer. Heck, there may even be a few solid DJ mixes scattered about in the 21st Century from said big players showcasing some extra longevity in the old girl. Plus, how can I make such a claim without having heard every big beat compilation released after this one? Honestly, I don't even know of any such releases from after the year 2000, nor am I anxious to trawl the depth of Lord Discog's tomes in search of such items to prove my audacious proclamation.

Yet I confidently make it, for a few reasons. One, the genre itself truly was on the outs shortly after this CD came out. As mentioned, the Fatboys, Chemical Bros and Propellerheads of the world could still make hay from it, while the soundtrack business remained quite lucrative. That was about the extent of its market penetration though, the top spots already filled, and little to no room for newer cats to stake a claim. Besides, there was a new-fangled sub-genre of breaks gaining positive underground cred; a nu-er 'skool', if you will. Sorry, big beat, but may as well make a name in that scene instead when Junkie XL is getting all the plush scoring gigs.

In my books (and my blog), what makes a great compilaton truly great is not stuffing a pile of recognizable hits and names and calling it a day. It's unearthing overlooked gems that properly represent whatever your CD's theme is selling. Unfortunately for big beat, such occurrences had grown exceedingly rare by the turn of the century due to the above factors. Even this series from Moonshine never made it past its second volume, but if Big Dirty Beats 2 was to be its swan song, it was a heck of a way to go out.

Right off, you know you're in for something better than the norm, as the CD opens with not The Wiseguys' huge hit Ooh La La, but their lesser hit Start The Commotion. Okay, the tracks are practically the same, but it at least shows Moonshine thinking outside the box. At the other end of the CD is Lunatic Calm, LC001 (Neon Ray Mix), and if you're drawing a big ol' blank on that tune, that's just because you never looked further into Lunatic Calm's discography post-Metropol. The only other 'star acts' here is Omar Santana and Cirrus, with their future video-game staple Time's Running Out, but I'll allow it, as it's a dope tune. (also, Afrika Bambaataa, but his cut isn't much of anything)

The remaining seven tracks feature acts with barely any Discoggian presence, offering up a variety of breaks that are as big, dirty, and dope as anything the stars of the day made. *chef's kiss*

Neo-Adventures - Big Daddy's Tonight

Hypnotic: 1997

This feels like one of the most needlessly ambitious albums to have ever graced the Hypnotic discography. For one thing, did you know that Neo-Adventures is a super-group? Okay, not really a 'super-group' how you may think of (big names combining forces to do big th'angs), but in terms of Hypnotic, I think the description is apt.

Three chaps are part of this project, most prominent of the bunch being Martin Nielsen. You might remember me mentioning him in that Goa Box: Trance 4 Motion compilation many solar cycles ago, wherein he adopted multiple aliases to fill out a budget trance three-discer. Normally such antics are dodgy as fuck, but his contributions were surprisingly among the best that collection had to offer. He even had a pile of tunes in another dodgy compilation of mine, Rave-Trance 2001, and again were among the better tracks there.

So while I know this won't be some mind-melting hidden gem of exceptional trance (because c'mon!), there's at least a capable hand in the studio. Along for the ride is the late Jan Kjølhede Meedom, whom had done a few productions with various groups here and there throughout the '90s, but was more known for his DJing and label management. Outloud Records (they of Audio Science, Bypass Unit, and a lot of sado-masochist gabber) was his first taste of success, and responsible for numerous Hypnotic releases as a result. This led to him taking over the Danish side of the print, where he carried on doing goa trance mixes for the label before moving on.

Also part of Neo-Adventures is Jakob Andreas Mensch. Lord Discogs has very little information about him, a jazz-dub trip-hop project with Mr. Nielsen called Katharsis his lone prominent work. Neo-Adventures too, I guess.

A pile of dudes in the studio doesn't make a project 'needlessly ambitious' though – just ask Kraftwelt. Nah, I'm talking about the music within, tunes aesthetically on that Danish goa-trance tip, but so very much aiming at progressive house opulence. Second track Good Old Adventure is over eleven minutes long, making it perhaps the longest trance song in all of Hypnotic's history (sans Audio Science's work). And it goes through numerous movements and tonal transitions too, as if its some long lost Blue Amazon work. Just, y'know, not quite as good in the production and songcraft.

There's housier chuggers (Skydiving Baboons, Wake Up Fall), tech-housey shufflers (the titular cut), spacey acid stompers (Hot Pants), proper trance business (Whhhaaauu ...cripes, what awful names), and even a twelve-plus minute live outing of Wake Up Fall (twice as long as the album version already on the CD). A nice amount of variety then, with nifty little hooks, rhythms, and melodies that do a decent job of getting my trance-endorphins flaring up. Again, no where near as good as whatever Sasha and Diggers would rinse out (not even Oakenfold, really), but on the late '90s Hypnotic scale, remarkably superb stuff for a hopelessly obscure release!

Various - Beyond The Machines

Infonet: 1993

Looking at this CD sure brings back memories. Oh, not for any particular sentimental attachment to the compilation itself. In fact, I only recently came across this, during my last and final splurge on Bandulu material. Nay, what triggers the ol' nostalgia endorphins with Beyond The Machines is remembering how enamoured I'd get with such mysterious items like this.

The cover art some strange blend of manga and pulp comics. The track list consisting of such bizarre, unconventional names like Syzygy, Sulphuric, and Thunderground. Even the title hinted at music taking things to a totally different level of electronics, beyond whatever the original Detroit future-fetishists had in mind (to say nothing of the bouncy, poppy euro-dance that was the limit of my knowledge back when). Given the opportunity, Beyond The Machines could have been one of the seminal releases in Teenage Sykonee's developing interests and tastes, opening a whole unforeseen world of sonic possibilities. More realistically though, it'd probably get stacked along such compilations like Tone Tales From Tomorrow Too and The Sound Of Zero And One, techno collections just a tad too off the beaten path for me to 'get' as a dewy-eyed teenager.

Many years older now, and with a vast database of neigh-limitless knowledge at my fingertips, Beyond The Machines is a mysterious item no more. I know who Bandulu is. I know who Syzygy is (and truthfully, one of the main reasons I sprung for this along with the additional Bandulu material). I even know what Infonet is, and that this compilation was a showcase for the label's budding artists. Erm, not many of them stuck around longer than this CD, while one of them had already been making a name for himself in Detroit before (Eddie Fowlkes, who's I Wanna Know is definitely on that 'Detroit guys wanting to make Chicago deep house' tip). Subterfuge's Liquid Poetry reminds me of those way-early attempts at trance you'd hear out of non-Frankfurt regions of the deustchland, while Rev 1's Chochillics and Sulphuric's Better Come Together offer up the acid business.

Really though, Beyond The Machines is mostly about Bandulu and their various side-projects (Thunderground, Koh-Tao). Even the Syzygy track, Meditation, is rather Bandulu-ish, with its loopy nature and all, though quite trancey and mellow compared to the proper techno workouts the Bandulu-proper cuts offer. The opener Thunderground cut, Illegal Rush, inches closer to the domain of trance as well, while the track Amaranth could almost be a New Beat tune, what with its sampling of the synth arp from My Mine's Hypnotic Tango. Not so sure about those tinny trumpets though. As for the Koh-Tao cut, bluesy country-twang in dub is the last thing I'd have expected to hear, but here we are.

The dated quality of these tracks unfortunately does overwhelm much of Beyond The Machines, which leaves the CD more a curioso or completist item of interest. Bandulu did have a unique sound, but it's better highlighted on their albums than here.

L.S.G. - The Best Of L.S.G. (The Singles Reworked)

Superstition: 2004

I can't recall if folks thought it at the time, but it did seem the L.S.G. era of Oliver Lieb's career was over. You usually don't do a 'Best Of' collection if you figure there's still more in the tank for a project. By the year 2004, however, the signs were aplenty that times were a'changein'. Chief among them, L.S.G. was soon to be homeless, the label Superstition unable to adapt with the ever-shifting trends in clubland. They tried getting in on that digital download thing with a run of L.S.G. singles re-issues, but it wasn't enough. Thus a finished album following The Hive went unreleased, and Lieb moved onto other things. Say, that minimal techno thing is catching on, how about that? Ah well, at least Superstition lived long enough to let Lieb do a 'remix album' of all the tunes that helped make the label one of trance's taste-makers of the '90s.

And honestly, I don't think an L.S.G. 'best of' could have worked as anything other than a 'reworking' of all his singles. The easy, lazy thing to do would be to just slap them all on a disc, maybe force a continuous mix out of it, and call it a day, but ol' Oliver had taken the project through many different paths over the decade of its existence. How could one's muse be satisfied with how the original works sounded after gaining so much experience in the studio since? I'm sure ideas and re-imaginings had been sloshing in his brain for a while (especially during the Into Deep sessions, if the final result is any indication), forming sonic links and chains among his various tracks. True, there's always been signature markers that let you know you're dealing with a Lieb production (the gated synths, the impeccable drum programming, those claps), but why not sum it all up in one uber-album retrospective?

Folly for me, I didn't 'get it' when I first threw on The Singles Reworked. Maybe I was more enamoured by the second disc holding all those non-album L.S.G. tunes, in my clutches for the first time and all (Hearts! Transmutation! Blueprint! Fragile (Gravity Fools The Magician Remix By Vapourspace)...?). Or maybe I was just so unfamiliar with all the reworked tunes that I couldn't appreciate the changes. Aside from My Time Is Yours, The Train Of Thought and Netherworld, none had appeared on an L.S.G. album. For a while, I thought it all cool and neat sounding, but cribbing just a bit too much from Into Deep's aesthetic to stand out as its own unique thing. As I said, folly for me.

But yes, time and repeated plays has provided enough perspective such that I hear The Singles Reworked as more than just a 'best of' remix record. It truly is an album unto itself, just with familiar melodies in a different context from their original conception. Think of it like an 'unplugged' session, except still very much plugged in.

Cryostasis - Between Static And Distance

...txt: 2017

It shouldn't come as a shock, but I don't necessarily listen to every CD I get the moment I get it. This endless project of mine has created something of a psychological tick, wherein I'd rather let my anticipation build and build and build until said album's properly, orderly, alphabetically-determined listening time arrives. And this one, I've been waiting on for nearly three years now! Like, I knew I was getting it the moment I saw the cover-art. There's just something about seeing radio receivers in silhouette that tugs at the emotions in me. Maybe it's from that one episode of Cosmos that had similar beauty shots, with Vangelis playing in the background. Yeah, that's the stuff. Erm, but that album title, tho'. When I decided I would review my remaining items after all, that shuffled all 'B' acquisitions into future reference, so the Cryostasis debut had to sit pat for so many months, just so many months.

I won't lie though, I also had some hesitation going into this one. For Cryostasis is a side-project of Si Matthews, whom had yet to capitalized on the potential folks assumed was ahead of him following his debut of Tales Of Ten Worlds. Not that his follow-up on ...txt, Aurora, was weak, it just didn't light the discourse up quite the same way Tales did. I sense the ship's righted as of late thanks to his double-LP effort Across The Ether, but there was a shaky in-between there, from which this album sprung forth during. And the fact his partner in this project, Aoide, is a near-blank within Lord Discogs' archives doesn't help matters. No frame of reference to compare and contrast, how their styles mesh and mingle. All I can do is take the album the ol' fashioned way: on its own merits.

And for an ambient techno album on that vintage Fax+ tip, it's fine. There's a spacey vibe going on here, with a loose theme of exploration beyond our solar system. Tracks mostly run in the a nine-to-eleven minute range, plenty of time to weave a nice sonic tapestry without over-indulging it. Along with feeling retro without feeling dated, one of Si's strongest attributes is his use of subtly building rhythms, and tracks like Another Perfect Earth, Pulsating With Life, and The Destiny Of Man (fifteen minutes to work it helps) offer this superbly. Elsewhere, things go more subdued and reflective, with softer beats and charming acid melodies, or entirely beatless at all (-455°F).

Sounds like all the audio catnip for these ears I could hope for, right? Then why doesn't Between Static And Distance stick with me after it plays? It honestly feels like the same issue I had with Aurora, missing that little extra something that separates 'good' from 'great'. Or maybe my expectations were just too damn high again, which happens with greater frequency now that we're utterly spoiled for musical options. Ambient techno consumers are no longer the forlorn beggars of electronic music.

Strange Days Behind, Insanity Ahead

It's not getting better anytime soon, is it?

Like, I was not so naive to think things would return to whatever 'normal' was in an instant, fully supportive of the responsible, pragmatic steps to post-pandemic recovery. And here in Vancouver, things seem to be proceeding as well as one can hope. Just this weekend, I went for a Denny's breakfast for the first time in months. Never thought I'd miss the ol' greasy girl. Sure, I couldn't go at my preferred time, somewhere around the 5am timeslot (nothing beats waking up too early, and going for an All-American Slam), but pragmatism, man. Guess we'll see in a few weeks how severe the unavoidable Second Wave is, but so long as we don't rush things, Vancouver should remain one of the healthier cities emerging from All This.

Yet when I watch what's going on in America right now, I see nothing but a long, grim road ahead. Used to be I'd sit in a lawn chair at the border munching popcorn, enjoying the spectacle of a nation so dysfunctional like so much Reality TV. The view is no longer so nice though, and my lawn chair sags, and the popcorn tastes stale. I want to help make things right, but am completely and utterly powerless to do so, thus can only watch and hope my brothers and sisters to the south can figure it out. How can they, though, when these issues are so ingrained and systemic that repressed folk feel nothing short of open rebellion is their only course of action? I feel powerless to do anything as an outside observer, but my God, how do those forced to live within that system cope? Lord knows I'd have been pushed well to my edge long ago if I had to put up with even a fraction of what minorities in America do. Marching in streets seems to accomplish too little, especially when the cops surrounding you are just itching at the chance to run you over with their tactical tanks or whatever Army hand-me-downs they get.

It just makes hobby-writing about 'escapism music' feel like more of a pointless chore at this time. I still do it, of course, but man, whenever I fire up the ol' computer, open up my OpenOffice, type out a few sentences, refer to the internet for some background info and Oh MY GOD! It never was this insane, was it? No, no it wasn't. Spits and fires, sure, but now it's all building and ramping up to a raging climax no one can predict but years of Downer Drama Television (depression porn?) has led us to believe it can't be good, it won't be good.

Ah well, at least I still have Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, a game that takes the hyper-sensationalism of Americana (specifically early '90s Americana) and cranks it to levels of parody. Just barely so, compared to our current climes.