Various - Backspin: A Six Degrees Ten Year Anniversary Project (Original TC Review)

Six Degrees: 2007

(2019 Update:
I wonder if 2007 Sykonee would have been so critical of gatekeeping if he'd known that electronic music would blow up to the degree it did half a decade later? My larger point in the pre-amble ramble was pop music needn't be so shunned by the techno underground, but considering the sort of obnoxious bilge that did break through into America - not to mention the usual slop constantly hitting it high in European charts - my wish for a little more acceptance of popular sounds shouldn't have been taken upon a monkey's paw. And was kind of a moot point anyway where this compilation was concerned. Yeah, the original artists being covered here were generally chart toppers, but the selected songs for covering were hardly their biggest hits. Heck, some of them may not have charted at all.

Also, I'd love to see this concept revisited. Would be interesting to see what the current generation of wordly musicians consider their influences of the past three decades.)


IN BRIEF: The old is new again.

Before I start, I feel I should warn you the following review contains musical philosophizing. If you haven’t the time to indulge in my pseudo-intellectual rambling, then here’s the bottom line regarding this release: it’s good. Really good. Check it out. You won’t regret it!

Alright then? Let’s get into it.

Electronic music, for the most part, is typically regarded as non-mainstream. Aside from brief bursts of trendy pop dance hitting the airwaves, most of it is only enjoyed by a select few (in America, anyway). As a result, a sense of pretentiousness has been bred in its fans. The pursuit of underground purity permeates many scenes, even those who could very easily have crossed over had some events been different. This has led to an outright dismissal of anything with a hint of pop. The assumption is if it’s catchy, it must have been manufactured for a wider audience, thus no longer credible within the realms of the indie. What a load of bull.

Granted, a great deal of pop music is manufactured, with the sole intention of placing in the charts as high on street date as possible. But believing every song that does is ridiculous. Fact is plenty of musicians can hit upon a good song the general public enjoys and, with just the right amount of promotion, become a hit. In this age of Everything-Available-All-The-Time, a single spreading through the internet can secure success far better and credibly than thousands of PR dollars pumped into the industry.

Alas, the gut reaction of scensters to ignore good songs that become popular persists. So here’s an intriguing question: what if these popular songs hadn’t made it, and had initially been performed by obscure indie names like Ojos de Brujo or The Real Tuesday Weld? Would such folk enjoy them in that context then?

Okay, okay. This isn’t really the premise behind Six Degrees Records' new compilation. In actual fact, Backspin is a ten year anniversary project for the eclectic label. However, rather than rounding up a bunch of their biggest hits, Six Degrees instead got members of their roster to do covers of their influential songs. But in doing so, it does raise that question, doesn’t it?

Well, maybe not. Perhaps I was the only one to even think of it. It was something that crossed my mind when I saw songs on here originally written by names like Abba and The Beach Boys. Credible names to a degree, sure, but frankly often dismissed by the underground.

Anyhoo, that’s all beside the point. What matters here is whether these cover versions are worth your attention. In a word, yes.

In more than a word, the mark of a good cover is to take a familiar song and make it your own while still honoring what made the original an enduring tune to begin with. And here Backspin certainly succeeds.

Many of the producers here stick to the original arrangements for the most part, but often throwing their own sound into the mix. So Bob Marely’s Get Up Stand Up turns into a fun bit of latin music courtesy of Ojos de Brujo, Herbie Hancock’s Rockit gets organically jazz-housed up by dZihan & Kamien, and MIDIval PunditZ crank the orchestral arrangements up on Led Zeppelin’s Four Sticks.

Elsewhere though, songs are given completely different re-imaginings. For instance, who’d have ever thought the ABBA italo-ballad The Day Before You Came could have been interpreted as a kind of smokey lounge tune sung by a guy probably wearing a beret? The Real Tuesday Weld did.

Of course, there are plenty of other examples I could dwell on, but part of the fun in this compilation is discovering what surprises these musicians throw at you. Here’s a few tidbits that caught my interest:

- Shrift’s take on God Only Knows really turns this tune into a weepy. The original was so bouncy that I had never even considered the lyrics could be this depressing.

- Toby Marks (Banco de Gaia) seems to still be having fun with his vocoder.

- Spirits In The Material World has notoriously been known to be a difficult song to cover, as the arrangements are deceptively complicated. Good on Karsh Kale to have a go.

- Los Mocosos’ cumbia go at The Bed’s Too Big Without You is a hoot!

So a wrap up then? Backspin is a lot of fun, period. While the wide range of musical types may not be everyone’s cup of tea, the fact they wrap familiar pop in these unique styles should keep even the least adventurous intrigued. Seek it out and get reacquainted with old standbys.

Written by Sykonee for TranceCritic.com, 2007 All rights reserved

Perturbator - B-Sides And Remixes, Vol. II

Blood Music: 2018

James Kent has been rather quiet on the production front these last few years. His last full-length record was The Uncanny Valley, released way back in 2016 (holy cow, does that year ever feel for so long ago now). The following year, it looked like he may have started taking his music in a different direction with the New Model EP, but nothing come from the Perturbator project since. For a chap who was releasing material at a blistering clip for half a decade, that's quite the drop-off in output, though I'm sure there's some reasonable reasons for it.

Like, that whole touring thing. Synthwave artists aren't exactly known as a globe-trotting lot, often dorky studio shut-ins cranking out some jams with softsynths. Heck, even using the word 'studio' is a stretch for many, a laptop about all one needs for some run-of-the-mill '80s nostalgia throwback tracks. Why yes, that under-produced quality is part of my vision, just like it sounded in that decade! Perturbator, however, had become such a star within that scene that he could actually take his music on the road and perform it live, even in my little corner of the planet. No way was I gonna' pass up a chance to see an actual synthwave producer perform, and while I was a tad disappointed the show didn't have a bunch of cool, retro videos playing out all the crazy concepts of his albums, the 1.21 gigawatts of lighting rig more than made up for visual splendour. Also, he brought a live drummer.

Anyhow, touring across the Earth (and beyond!(?)) leaves little time for studio work, so it's fine that there's been a larger than normal gap between albums from Mr. Kent. Still, that void needs filling, lest the fanbase grow testy and distracted by whatever new hotness emerges in the meantime. With the amount of material Perturbator had built up over the years, a 'best of' wouldn't be a bad idea, but James opted for that other stopgap choice, the 'miscellaneous' collection. We're talking b-sides, remixes, compilation-only tracks, and those few items that never saw any official release prior. And apparently, there was so much of this material in the Perturbator archives that it required two volumes! Yeah, that'll tide them folks over.

For some reason though, I only got myself Vol. II of this double release. I can only assume because I could only afford one at the time, and this cover looked the cooler of the two – can never get enough of that Night Riding Avenger motif. Blood Music's having another blowout sale though, so maybe I'll spring for Vol. I too.

Anyhow, this is about what you'd expect from and odds 'n' sods collection of Perturbator tracks. There's more darksynth cuts, a few theme remixes (yep, that's Halloween if I ever heard it), some space synth collaborations with Starforce, and one experimental static track that must have been included just for a larf. 'Bonus' indeed.

Harlequins Enigma - Brooding Brains In Vain

self released: 2019

(a Patreon Request from Åge Riisnes)

I don't dig very far into the realm of New Age music, almost entirely due to my early explorations of the genre didn't impress me much. Sure, you had the Kitaros and the Vangeliseses of the scene, but such artists have expansive works crossing multiple genres throughout their careers. No, I'm talking the 'real' stuff, which you'd find on lonesome tapes in spiritual healing shops on a counter beside faith crystals and aromatherapy tinctures. Very under-produced, is what I'm getting at, and while one could admire the punkish hustle in getting such music out on the market, my ears simply weren't having it, needing something a little more polished (dubby?) to do the business for me.

What's kinda' remarkable about such early, primitive music efforts in New Age is how even that found itself something of a retro revival, right down its aesthetic and means of distribution. Yeah, that whole vaporwave thing, but I'm talkin' digital store fronts and streaming services opening the floodgates for every manner of hopeful producer gaining wider audiences.

Still, just putting your stuff out on the internet and expecting results is ludicrous without some hustle. If your chosen music scene is as long and storied as New Age, it's gonna' take a fair amount of hustle to get noticed in an overstuffed market. And this here Harlequins Enigma sure has been on a hustling spree this past decade, getting his music out on streaming services while working whatever connections he has in the music business to get some top-tier collaborations underneath his belt, all the while remaining completely independent. I'm talkin' Vangelis, Kitaro, Schulze, Jarre, Mode, 'Werk, Amos! At least, that's what a number of Discoggian credits say. I don't know the extent of how these collaborations went down.

Oh, I guess I should also mention Harlequins Enigma's hustle has even gone to such lengths as to pay me Patreon money for a review. Wasn't that known as 'payola', back in the day? Only if I had nothing but insincere praise for the music, and y'all know I'd never do that, right?

Brooding Brains In Vain is a compilation of older Harlequins Enigma music, mostly cribbing music from such albums like Lyra, Heartbeat, Stargazer, and Octagon Volume 1 – Phase 7. Some of it's serviceable New Age music done in an old-school way (oh man, can I tell whenever Kitaro's muse is about), some of it sounds like it could have used more time in the mixdown process, and some of it left me scratching my head (are those... brostep belches in The Tattering Norm?).

What really threw me for a loop, though, was the track sequencing. For some reason, Åge put everything into alphabetical order, creating more than a couple wonky transitions between tracks. I at first thought I'd somehow downloaded the album incorrectly, but nope, it's like that on the Bandcamp page too. What sort of silly goose makes a track sequence in alphabetical order?

Various - Hed Kandi World Series: London

Hed Kandi: 2010

I've heard the tales of Hed Kandi's turn toward shameless bandwagon chasing so often repeated that I couldn't help but repeat them myself. Surely the folks that were following the label since its inception would be knowledgeable in those matters, such that I could trust their opinions on it. Still, always that lingering doubt in my head, wondering if it was a classic case of a fandom growing jaded as their favoured thing drifts from that which they so initially enjoyed. I know I've been guilty of such notions, and while the Hed Kandi brand wasn't a super-underground franchise, it did carve out a particular niche in the clubbing consciousness by adhering to a certain aesthetic that appealed to a certain demographic: classy, funky, soulful disco and house for those who liked classy, funky, soulful disco and house.

So I can imagine with great sympathy the pain and sense of betrayal the Hed Kandi faithful felt upon hearing a triple-CD outing such as this. Like, I get why the label would take such a turn, the allure of big festival fuck-off money too tempting to resist. And sure, Timothy Berg had hit upon a successful formula that was super-easy to copy and paste for others to capitalize on, such that you could whip up your own Avicii clones to fill out a CD or three. That was never really Hed Kandi's M.O. though, was it? Yeah, their brand of disco house was commercial at times, something you'd hear in boutique clothing stores at the mall. Never the main mall speakers though.

CD 1 of World Series: London is all anthem house (re: 'big room EDM'), all the way through. And while Avicii only appears a few times in this set, his impact can be felt throughout. It's utterly banal and tiring and the sort of stop-start nonsense you'd have expected from the eurotrance scene. Nope, this is now what house music also is, and what Hed Kandi's pushing, so fuck all those who held the label with any sort of regard for class. Funk and soul is dead.

“Hey, now, Bitter Boy, that's just CD 1, the clubbing fodder used to lure impulse buyers in,” some may claim. “CD 2 is where the real tunes are, right?” Sure, if you fancy yourself anthemic 'deep' house – a bunch of big builds, but crashing out into monotonous tech-house anti-grooves. You can hear flashes of Hed Kandi of old, little pieces of singing soul sista's and booty-shakin' rhythms, but come off like teasing nostalgia triggers to remind you of what once was, but no longer is.

Honestly, were it not for the unmixed third CD, with awesome names like Tiga, Peaches, Röyksopp, and Silicone Soul included, World Series: London would have been a total write-off for yours truly. This was the sort of music that caused my 'crisis of faith' back in 2010 (among others), and I wasn't even a Hed Kandi follower then! Those poor, unfortunate souls...

Steve Brand - Upwelling: Emergence

Databloem: 2018

Steve Brand seemed familiar to me, but Discoggian evidence shows that couldn't possibly be the case. Though he's released some forty album's worth of music in the past fifteen years, a high percentage of it has been through his own, independent labels (Relaxed Machinery, Pioneer Light Music). And despite a discography as big as his, he hasn't done much for the compilation market either. Yet I still associate his name with ambient artists of old, which makes sense given his style of ambient is in the ancient, traditional form of the genre. I must have noticed his works on labels like Hypnos and AtmosWorks, where old-schoolers like Vidna Obmana, Robert Rich, and Vir Unis have released material. Oh, Ishq too, whom Steve Brand collaborated with on the double-LP Spiritual Science / The Voice From Home. Huh, sometimes the connections are as simple as that.

Though that pairing happened a decade ago, it helped give him a small in with ...txt, where Brand got to release one of his Near Series CDs on. And as seems to be the case now, when a producer releases something on a Lee Norris print, they get invited over to the Databloem family as well. Or sometimes it's the other way around. Lots of cross-pollination between the two camps, is what I'm saying, more than I ever thought possible. Throw in Aes Dana providing another mixdown for a Databloem joint, and I'm beginning to wonder if I should be on the look-out for some massive, multi-franchise crossover event within the world of ambient and chill music. That isn't a tribute to Pete Namlook.

Upwelling: Emergence is a sequel of sorts, the first Upwelling coming out way back in 2011 as an odd 'n' sods collection of material. So too it goes with this one, various unused items and inspirational flights of fancy of the past decade rounded up into a compilation. A strange method of making a debut on a new label, though not unprecedented. Heck, I think I've reviewed such an item before (Aythar's Dream Of Stars). It's a safe way to test the waters with a broader audience, seeing if one's stylee meshes with their tastes before dropping an LP of new, original content on their ears. As if the ambient collective is some stuffy scene of opinionated gate-keepers.

As I'm not about to dive deeply into Brand's discography right now (so many albums...), all I can tell you regarding this particular release is what I mentioned above. Steve's 'brand' (*slap*) of ambient mostly entails lengthy, overlaying synth drones and gentle field recordings, abstract art music as crafted right from the '80s. It's all very serene and pleasant and calming and-

G'ah! What's with those flutes in The Krater Of Earth? So shrill and piercing following half a CD's worth of soothing tones and timbre. The track settles into a standard pad-drone piece, but geez, hearing those sure was a slap in the face. Knocked me out of my peaceful doze, it did.

Various - Nu Cool 3

Hed Kandi: 1999

A Very Important compilation, this, for without Nu Cool 3, there would be no Hed Kandi. Okay, label founder Mark Doyle almost certainly had the brand percolating in his head for a while. This one though, this one kicked it all off as its own entity, paving the way for future staples of the compilation racks like Disco Kandi, Back To Love, Serve Chilled, and many, many, many more. Then the brand would grow too big for its own good, branching out from its lounge origins into gaudy mega-clubs and decadent pools parties, forced into Ministry Of Sound servitude to handle all the bloat. Eventually the easy-cool vibes it peddled would pave way to desperate trend chasing, just to keep pace with a rapidly changing clubbing environment, a once respected franchise mutating into a parody of its former glory. Gosh, thanks, Nu Cool 3, for all that.

“But wait!” you say, “How can Nu Cool 3 be the start when it's clearly the third in a series? What happened to 1 and 2?” Uh, haven't I touched upon this before? Well, an ultra-brief recap: Hed Kandi got its start on the jazz 'n' soul print Jazz FM Records, where the first two Nu Cool compilations appeared. They soon after got the backing to launch Hed Kandi proper, with this particular item. And, uh, that's it. We sorted, then? Good, let's get going.

It's quite the timewarp going this far back into the Hed Kandi canon. Their earliest releases were always known for skewing towards the soulful side of dance music, but some of the tunes on this two-discer sounds like it could have come direct from The Garage of the early '80s. I had to sleuth through Lord Discogs checking all these acts and remixes were (then) current. Lots of Masters At Work productions, plus plenty o' contributions from soul-jazz house mainstays like King Britt, Kevin Yost, Rae & Christian, Sylk 130, and Francois K. The Latin side of things gets repped by Cesária Évora's Sangue De Beirona and an Ashley Beedle run on Airto's City Sushi Man. Moloko's Sing It Back is also here, because you just gotta' have at least one big anthem in a collection like this.

Overall though, Nu Cool 3 serves up as fine a dish of house, garage, disco, funk, and soul as you could expect from that scene in the late '90s, providing well-worn tunes while shedding some shine on a few lesser known cuts. A fine way to kick of a-

What the...? Why on earth is Ooh La La from The Wiseguys on here? Sure, tacked on the end of CD2, but holy cow, talk about a tonal whiplash! That tune's always been regarded as big beat, hardly what I'd deem as the 'new cool'. A couple examples of acid jazz action follow, which is a bit more on brand, but still rather rough an' tough compared to all the smooth action that came before. Weird end to this compilation.

Various - Kulør 001

Kulør: 2018

I've argued 'real' trance never went away, just rebranded itself as something else and kept to small secluded corners of techno's domain. Lately, it seems those who wanted to make trance but couldn't admit to making trance because of the Dutch's handling of the tag have slowly re-emerged from the recesses of club culture, prominent critically-approved DJs rinsing out the odd throwback tune here and there. It's gotten to the point where a label can make honest-to-God vintage trance music and have music journalist sorts sing its praises for accomplishing all the things it peaked out on by the year 1995. Ah, the dependable Twenty-Year retro cycle never fails.

I know, I know. Why be cynical when I should be celebrating a release like Kulør 001? Surely I've been waiting for a release such as this since the turn of the century. I guess, kinda'? It's not like I've run out of old school trance music to unearth. Truth be told, aside from a few labels that could do no wrong, a great deal of it was rightly left in the '90s, a sound that had creatively done almost all that it might. Then again, dub techno perseveres to this day, and ain't much variation in that genre's sound over the decades. Ambient too, if we're being honest. Okay, so classic trance could have maintained something for itself if enough willing, inventive producers indulged in it. The clubbing climate just wasn't there for it though, and when eurotrance stole the name for itself, that was about all she wrote for the hypnotic spacey offshoot of EBM and techno.

But as mentioned, retro's undeniable pull can reach back to any ol' sound and make it fresh and hot again, which is what I'm sure this upstart new label out of Denmark is counting on. Hey, I liked the Danes' take on trance, always finding a sweet middle ground between German class and Dutch cheese. And that's what I get out of Kulør's launching compilation, Kulør 001. Ooh, triple-digits compilation numbering. Mighty ambitious aspirations there, just like In Trance In Trust. I wonder what that label's been up to...

Just in case you were wondering (worried?) this would be a complete retro love-in, the beats throughout this compilation are as tough as modern techno can get. Nay, it's all about those melodies, such light uplifting ditties that'll have you reminiscing early '90s Paul van Dyk. And gosh, there's some high BPMs here too, a proper reminder of when trance music was made to fuel your speedy E' benders, rather than hop in one spot under a ketamine daze. Mind, some of these wouldn't be much more than filler on an old Rave Mission collection, but they trigger the nostalgia endorphins just the same. If such tunes remain too cheesy for you though, there's some proper faceless techno bosh on Kulør 001 as well. Guess classic trance still needs a little more time before a full return is embraced.

Pet Shop Boys - Further Listening 1988-1989

Parlaphone: 2018

This isn't a proper Pet Shop Boys release per se, but rather an added bonus to the Introspective re-issue. In fact, most of their albums have these Further Listening CDs attached to them now, which nags the question of whether I should review these as a separate entity at all. I probably wouldn't, but when ripping the CD to my harddrive, it came up as Further Listening 1988-1989, not as Introspective: Disc 2, thus isolating it from its mother album in my alphabetical listening queue. Perfect logical sense! Oh, and yes, Please and Actually have these Further Listening discs too, but my copies of those albums are older versions, sans the reissue bonus stuff. Will likely get the double-discer of Very though, as there was a lot of kick-ass associated material when that album was released (or so I'm told).

If you're worried about Introspective spoilers (because 'worrying about spoilers' is so trendy right now), the good news is Further Listening: Late '80s doesn't have that much material associated with its main album. Part of that is due to the very nature of Introspective, wherein- nope, not gonna' say it here. Gotta' save some material for later. All you need to know is very few disco mixes and alternate versions of songs from there make it here. Two versions of Domino Dancing (a demo and an alternate), two versions of It's Alright (a seven-inch and a ten-inch), and one one seven-inch mix of Left To My Own Devices. Five tracks may seem a lot, but with fifteen to gorge yourself on, 'tis but a droplet (especially when they're just extended/shortened versions of the album tunes).

As always, it's the b-sides that we're here for, and hoo, are there some doozies. Like that The Sound Of The Atom Splitting, essentially the Boys' stab at an acid house track. Of course, being from the UK, they don't quite get it, the track far too over-produced with studio gimmickry to actually be of much utility in a Chicago club, but those five minutes are among the strangest in their discography (apparently the original cut breaches double-digits in length). I'm more intrigued by One Of The Crowd though, what with its vocoder lyrics, synthy lead, and repetitive rhythmic pulse. It's like, proto-trance, even before The KLF were doing it. Okay, around the same time. Another b-side is Don Juan, which has something of a soft tropical vibe going for it, but in that real synthy Pet Shop Boys sort of way. I honestly wouldn't think much of it, but damn, do they know how to hit a chorus.

Then there's I Get Excited, apparently a tune that appeared on one of the Boys' earliest demo tapes (1983) that included West End Girls, One More Chance and It's A Sin. I don't know what's more fascinating, that they had such killer tunes in mind before even considering making albums, or that they were raiding it for supplemental material so long after the fact.

Various - Drum & Bass Arena: 20 Years Of D&B 1996-2016

Drum&BassArena: 2016

Wow, twenty years. What's crazy is I still vividly recall listening to the Arena's early online streams off the computer of that one friend who always had the best internet connections. Okay, 'vividly' is stretching things. I don't remember specifics, but I do recall how cool it was to hear live broadcasts of d'n'b shows half a world away. You'd almost think our modern age of neigh unlimited HD audio insta-streams in 4K clarity would render a website like DrumAndBassArena moot now, but there's something to be said for having an established brand in the overstuffed promotions market. Barring a total and complete collapse of the internet as we currently know it, I see no reason why the DnB-A won't be around to celebrate a thirtieth anniversary. Well, at least a twenty-fifth.

Naturally, a two-decade birthday party can't be complete without a pile of music to celebrate with, and we get three CDs worth to gorge ourselves on. Seems like a straight-forward exercise, rounding up a pile of d'n'b bangers for an extended party, but I was curious how it'd compare with the 10 Years rinse-out. With Adam F and Grooverider handling the decks there, that outing accomplished a remarkable feat in highlighting all the upfront developments the jungle scene was going through (so much Pendulum influence ...just so much), while honouring all that had made 'ardcore such a dynamic sound in its younger days. A tough act to follow, is what I'm saying, and by the looks of things, the Arena didn't even try bringing in any A-list jocks for their 20 Years rinse-out. No credits for the DJ mixes, at least.

CD1 is billed as Music For The Masses, and with an opening one-two punch of Pendulum's Tarantula and Sub Focus' Rock It, it sure is that. Good news is it isn't all Pendulum-styled d'n'b all the way through (they show up again with Vault, because of course), and things even go darkstep mid-set (Spor! Hive! Phace! Other single-syllable names!). Things turn back to the cheesy sing-along anthems by the end, but eh, it is music for the masses. This set is honest. Meanwhile, CD2 provides the old-school tunes, or Recollections, and while most of the veteran names show up (Dillinja, Ed Rush, Optical, Total Science, Adam F, etc.), it's still not as good as Grooverider's 'classics' set. How could it be?

CD3 is a welcome surprise though. Billed as Deeper Cuts, it unearths a bevy of overlooked, well, deeper cuts. Microfunk, soul-step, atmospheric jungle, and all that good stuff, with Calibre, Marcus Intalex, dBridge, and Netsky among the names I recognize in the tracklist. Not many others though. Ivy Lab? Bachelors Of Science? Technimatic? Sabre, Stray & Halogenix featuring Frank Carter III? Who are all these guys? In any event, if 20 Years is your typical night of d'n'b personified, Deeper Cuts is that classy afterhours session, where the vibe remains brisk but mellow and chill. Good stuff for old-timers like me, by g'ar.

Various - Disco Kandi 05.02

Hed Kandi: 2002

Time munches on - *chomp, chomp* - and CDs that were once silly-costly on Vancouver shelves continue to drop in price across the globe, including the unstoppable Hed Kandi machine. This doesn't mean I'm interested in gathering up all the Hed Kandi compilations, but for an occasional fiver, what harm is there in a steady indulgence of early-'00s club house and disco dance? None I say, and let's be honest: no matter how corny or cheesy you think the music might be on these, it's neigh impossible resisting a tempting glance from the cover art alone. So slick, so supple, so seductive, so... oh my!

Hed Kandi may have started more on a deep house tip, but the label knew where the the real money was: the chill-out market! After they covered that angle, they branched out to the next most lucrative scene, establishing the Disco Kandi series, and hoo-boy howdy, were they quick to flood the market with sequels. 2001 alone saw three entries, capping off with Disco Kandi 5. For some reason though, they ditched regular numerical conventions after, and tag each subsequent volume as a decimal. In fact, they did this with most of their series after 2002. What sort of sense does that make? And why settle on whatever arbitrary number they did in the first place? Like, Beach House stopped at 04.0x, Winter Chill stopped at 06.0x, and Disco Heaven didn't even get past 01.0x. They'd eventually just revert to yearly tags, but this period does remain one of the quirkier aspects of the Hed Kandi legacy.

Anyhow, we're diving into Disco Kandi 05.02 (re: Disco Kandi 06), because it was the cheapest I found on a recent hunt. Also, I seem to be finding a lot of these .02 compilations over their sequels; strange, that. The concept of Disco Kandi is straight-forward enough: CD1 offers the more vintage sounds of disco, including nods to garage and diva soul, though all in a modern context. CD2 brings in the tougher disco house tunes, treading closer to French house's loopy domain, though as this is a 2002 release, we're not quite there yet.

Namedrops are about what you'd expect of a Hed Kandi release too. StoneBridge is here! Mousse T is here! Full Intention is here! Joey Negro is here! Tim Deluxe is here! Danny Howells.. is also here? Plump DJs? What are you doing here? Remixing War's old-timey Galaxy, is what.

Yeah, there's a few updated rubs of old tunes here, though not as many as I was expecting. Mousse T's go with T-Ski Valley's Catch The Beat sounds almost as pure as the 1981 disco-rap club it spawned from. Full Intention's go with Aly-Us' 1992 hit Follow Me wouldn't sound out of place in New York City that same year. Meanwhile, Hi Fi Serious turn The Beatles' Believe into ...wait, THE Beatles? *checks Discogs* Well sonofa'.. Turn The Beatles' mellow ditty Because into a disco house number. Cheeky mudder fuggers.

Various - Audioworks Various Artists V1 (Original TC Review)

C.I.A.: 2004

(2019 Update:
Well, is this ever an eyesore. I know there's still a few track-by-track reviews lurking in my archives, but the older they get, the harder they are to read. Not that they were well-written in the first place, but my eyes can't help but glaze over once the supposed meat is getting detailed. Looks like a bunch of fat and gristle now. Some folks out there like fat and gristle, but not me. I likes my steak lean an' mean.

Of course, the biggest oversight in this review is the total absence of any Pendulum name-drops. True, this compilation came out before the Down-Southerns changed the d'n'b game forever after, but I was writing this at peak Pendulum-mania. Frankly, though I knew they existed, and Jack Moss had reviewed them for TranceCritic, they never registered on my radar until much later. Just goes to show how out of the loop I really was from jungle at the time, so take whatever I had to say here with a boulder of sodium carbonate.)


IN BRIEF: Rough’n’ready jungle for all.

Got’dang’it, but do I ever have a hard time starting these jungle reviews. I only dip into that scene whenever I feel the urge to bust out some frantic dancing or be absorbed by sub-whoofer assaults. The cultural nuances hardline junglists cling to with life-or-death intensity fly over my head, just because I’ve never been subservient to any one small niche of music-dom. Yes, I do my research for the necessary background info on the subject, but the personal insight a highly anticipated release on the jungle ‘mah-siive’ isn’t something I feel. I am, for all intent and purpose, a passive fan of the music, and that’s about it.

Perhaps that’s why we don’t cover as much jungle as some of the other genres. We know we can’t bullshit our way through some of the more underground acts, as junglists would see right through us. Alternatively, just dryly covering a release’s details is awfully boring, and can probably be read anywhere anyways.

Take this release for instance. I’m sure a hardline junglist could go into great depth about Total Science, their impact on the ‘deebee’ scene, and the particulars about their C.I.A. label. Of course, I could do the same, but the nuances junglists have come to know from fellow scensters would undoubtedly be missing from my interpretation of this info. While events are just historical dates to me, to the junglist they are defining moments in their lives.

Does this make me qualified to review jungle? As a review of jungle for junglists, maybe not. However, as a general music fan writing for other general music fans, why certainly.

That convoluted disclaimer out of the way, let’s dive ourselves into some breakneck drum’n’bass, yes?

So yeah, Audioworks is basically a showcase of the C.I.A. family (the C.I.A. stands for Computer Integrated Audio, your fun-fact of the day). Everyone has a moment to flex their muse here, and while the tempos are fairly consistent at their rapid pace, there are still plenty of flavors to be had.

Hive & Echo get the party started with some easy going street funk and synthy strings. Of course, the rhythms are as frenetic as ever, but never feel as though they’ll derail at any moment. As for the bassline, it doesn’t try to bludgeon you with its presence, simply bobbing along at sub-frequencies that’ll rumble in your gut when played on adequate sound-systems.

However, if you prefer your jungle with the basslines dominating, then Baron’s Meet The Creeper will be right up your alley. After a bit of a tease in the intro, the beats come in slammin’ with a grimy bass riff. Nothing pretty about this track; it knows its role and performs it admirably. DJ Friction’s follow-up Shockwave indulges with the formula a little more though, making use of a bleepy hook to play off the main bass hook. Additional sound effects complete the package, making Shockwave a well-rounded slice of niceness.

Wisely, Audioworks doesn’t overindulge in these tracks for long, and takes us into more soulful territory with Total Science’s own offering of Picture Perfect. The bassline still has drive, but the additional synth hooks and vocal samples help carry the song to mellower pastures. The next couple of tracks follow Picture Perfect’s lead quite nicely, although Booty Conspiracy began to wear a bit thin with its repetitiveness.

Invaderz aim to change the mood of this compilation once again, giving us a taste of the paranoid sci-fi soundscapes of Control. With more attention payed to the atmosphere rather than the rhythms here (the beats tend to be quite repetitive, and are arranged in such a manner that isn’t the easiest to dance to), this track may not be up your alley if you prefer your jungle soulful or energetic. Still, as a diversion form what we’ve heard so far on Audioworks, Control is a welcome bit of moody music.

The Spirit’s Midnight Run retains a similar atmosphere to Control, but the beats are more ‘bang-on’, making it easier to groove to. It also marks a return of the dominating basslines as heard earlier in this compilation, although intermittently. It makes for a nice segue though.

Why? Because follow-up Friday is absolutely killer, that’s why! The intro beats to this track are already some of the most intense heard on Audioworks, but when Friday briefly breaks down to introduce the main bassline hook in a nice build, the energy it creates is off the fucking chart! This is head-banging, balls-to-the-wallz, pummel you senseless jungle business here. And like crafty producers, Drumsound and Smith only makes use of it sparingly, making you hungry for it to drop back in but never for so long you get sick of it. Fucking wicked, this track is.

After that burst of nitro, we’re taken into a blissy bit of drum’n’bass with Digital’s 3 Point, hinting at an easy-going outro for this compilation. Follow-up Divine Intervention seems to support this idea for a bit, but takes a 180 by unleashing a growling, abrasive bassline with terrifying results. Heh, nothing like a little ‘bait’n’switch’ action to snap you out of your stupor. Q Project does come correct though, offering us a dubby slice of ragga jungle to take us out.

In all, I quite enjoyed listening to Audioworks. While individually these tracks may not be breaking any new ground, their arrangement here is very good. At no point did I feel the flow lagged or came to an abrupt halt, and each track managed to sound different enough from the last to keep me interested. In fact, even after listening to this constantly for the last few days to write this review, I’ve never grown bored of it, and will probably still have it on my current rotation.

Audioworks is a solid compilation of jungle. Even if you’re only a passive fan of the genre, do check it out.

Written by Sykonee for TranceCritic.com, 2006. © All rights reserved.

Delerium - Archives, Vol. 2

Nettwerk: 2001

I know the album Poem from Delerium has its fans, but for me it was a watered-down retread of Karma. After learning that Rhys Fulber had 'left' the partnership to pursue his own Conjure One project, I figured Delerium done. Joke's on me, Leeb and Fulber reconvening and adding four more albums to the Delerium discography since. Can't blame me for such an assumption though. When retrospective compilations hit the market, it's only natural to think a group is moving on.

Thus were my thoughts with Archives, released just after Poem, and seemingly as a stamp on the Delerium saga. Archives Vol. 1 would naturally cover all of their cross-over material (three albums is usually enough to cobble together a greatest hits package), while Vol. 2 would take a surprising dive into Delerium's pre-Nettwerk era. At least, that's what I assumed, hence why I only sprung for this collection and not Vol. 1. Turns out Vol. 1 reached even further back, when Leeb's pairing with Fulber had just started Delerium as little more than a side-project to Front Line Assembly, material only the earliest followers of their music would be aware of. That's remarkably bold of Nettwerk, assuming interest in the group had grown so substantial, they could capitalize on stuff in stark contrast to radio-friendly ethno-chill tunes featuring Sarah McLachlan. Maybe Leeb curried favours from the label, resuscitating stuff from his defunct Dossier print before Cleopatra somehow claimed total ownership over it.

What's interesting about Archives Vol. 2 is it also captures Delerium in transition. It covers three albums from their discography: Spiritual Archives, Spheres and Spheres II, the former essentially capping off their dark ambient period. And boy does it show on the track Drama, creepy industrial clank and melodramatic orchestration the name of the game there. Ephemeral Passage goes for the ominous yet angelic mood music, whereas Aftermath and Awakenings sound like the Front Line Assembly downtempo b-sides Delerium was.

Spheres, meanwhile, found Leeb and Fulber moving beyond the dusty catacombs and gothic planes in search of the outer realms of their muses. For sure it's still dark ambient, but spacier, emptier; music for traversing the Stargates of the Old Ones. Look, they ain't subtle about this, one of the tracks titled Monolith, and using the air ventilation sound effects from 2001: A Space Odyssey. To say nothing of the failing life supports beeping at the end of Hypoxia. There's some interesting ideas floating about the two Spheres showcases (almost the entirety of Spheres II is included on CD2), but some tracks seem to go on and on with no clear focus. Lots of weird sci-fi sound-effects, decent trip-hop beats, some toying around with acid and Delerium's distinct ethereal synth pads. The pure ambient pieces are quite lovely though.

Still, the most interesting take with the Spheres portion of Archives Vol. 2 is “they were making this concurrently with Semantic Spaces?” Makes you wonder what their future would have held had the Nettwerk debut flopped, doesn't it.

The Oak Ridge Boys - American Harmony

Heartland Music: 1986

Ah, hmm, seems I've lost contact with my future-self correspondence regarding these Oak Ridge Boys reviews. I'm not sure how that's possible. Like, wasn't I dealing with multi-verse versions of myself, thus his/my future remains in existence no matter what happens in my present? Or maybe I can only access certain timelines depending on how close to my own existence it lies, whether my current path will lead to such an outcome at all anymore. The 2073 Sykonee that we've come to know can no longer exist from where I'm currently sat if my future no longer leads to such a possibility. Absolutely it's ridiculous I could or would travel to a future Earth where I don't exist at all, potentially snuffing my being out of any reality, but then isn't all this time-travel stuff one big paradox anyway? Perhaps I should rephase the tachyon emitter array into a sixth-level quantum filament, then set the neutrino juicer to puree for a little extra flava-flav (yeah, bwoy!).

Well, maybe it's time that I step in and talk about Oak Ridge Boys from my own perspective, even offer some insight into how I've come to have so many of their albums and compilations. Actually, no, let's not do that; 'tis a silly story. Let's do this a bit more honestly, a bit more properly.

American Harmony is a double-LP gathering of the Oakies' biggest hits following the decade of their transition into pure country music. Yes, they were that darn popular throughout the early Reagan years, especially within certain American Heartland demographics. For this was their rebel music, a gospel group abandoning the stodgy confines of churches and pulpits for the glitz and glamour of honky-tonks and Vegas lights. Holy cow, you should see some of the outfits these guys wore in the late '70s! You'd think they were leads in a white-bread funk group.

Their success lay in singing songs that reached a broader audience that most Americans could relate to. Young teenage lust over Elvira. Heading out on the open road as in Leaving Louisiana In The Broad Daylight. Reminiscing over loves lost and found (just about every song, really). Bemoaning the fact all their cool cutting-edge gadgets were foreign, but at least their women were still American Made. Yeah, they couldn't help themselves with a little ol' flag-wavin' after seeing how the Soviets were living following a tour through Russia (!!), but whatever, nationalist paranoia was all the rage in the early '80s.

Speaking of the '80s, I find it hilarious that even a gospel-turned-country quartet of singers couldn't escape the '80s-ification of their music production. Some of these tracks sound so digitalized and tinny, they fit right at home an electronic music critic blog. Little Things in particular, already coming off like an '80s Beach Boys jingle (aka: not good), features one of the synthiest keyboard solos I've ever heard out of this everlasting group. Surely nothing in their catalogue can top this slice of ludicrous music.

Various - Ambient Rituals - Exercise One: Music For Soul Braiding

Hypnotic: 1995

I believe this was Hypnotic's first ambient compilation, though I use the genre lightly regarding the music on here. Dark ambient, yeah, plus weird dronescapes too, though nothing so occult as you might think from “Rituals” in the title. Then again, I had no clue of what to expect from a Hypnotic ambient release. All I'd ever heard from them was German trance, and while I knew some of those acts had downtempo material under their belt (ie: Komakino as Ynos), I'd never seen it appear on Hypnotic CDs before.

Well, none of that mattered, because Hypnotic didn't bother reaching into their Music Research trough for this compilation. Instead, they tapped an obscure Toronto print called DOVentertainment Inc., which briefly housed such famed industrial names like Zoviet France (and by extension, Rapoon), Digital Poodle, Dead Voices On Air, and La Floa Maldita. Okay, 'housed' is stretching it a bit; handled Canadian distribution, more like. Somehow, Cleopatra got the distribution rights to their material, and since they'd established Hypnotic as their one-stop outlet/dumping ground of all things 'raverish', handed it off there as an ambient collection, never mind the music here most definitely unplayable in traditional chill rooms. Technical stuff sometimes makes my head hurt, or maybe it's this inner-ear infection I'm dealing with.

Track one comes care of Kinder Atom, a quartet of producers that includes Heiki Sillaste. Their track of Scanus is a weird, spacey minimalist techno-dub, sounding rather empty yet soothing as subtle blips and beeps sing and breathe along a steady rhythm pulsing along. Ambient techno for sure, but with a striking ominous tone befit of an industrial outlet. Mr. Sillaste returns in track number two, Autorhythm Two from A.S.A., the second time I've come across this alias, meaning I now own half of this ridiculously obscure Canadian project. And what a strange track it is too, layers of bloopy sounds creating a percolating dripping sound as a lone beep echoes every so often. Interesting, if you dig your experimental techno. Heiki appears a third time later, under his most famed handle of Digital Poodle, though Weapon is but a transitional track, showing off angry robot noises before playing a forlorn ode to a post-war industrial wasteland. Surprisingly captivating, for the short time it plays. Rapoon's here too, with a super-long ultra-repetitive track that's also very meditative, in that old-school Rapoony sort of way.

Really, the two big takeaways I got from Ambient Rituals are a pair of tracks that couldn't be further apart if they tried. The first is Hemisphere from Synaesthesia, whom you may know as good ol' Leeb and Fulber merging their EBM and world beat senses into a big, bruising downtempo jam. The other is Vuls from Dead Voices On Air, a desolate composition of distant sounds and drones. Imagine being bound inside an asylum, the hum of ventilation ducts and a security camera your lone companions, words from your overseers intermittently oozing through the cold concrete walls. Delectable paranoia for the mindspace.

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.

Various - Ambient Dub, Volume 3: Aqua

Beyond: 1993

Back in my teenage years, I knew Beyond's Ambient Dub series existed (Banco de Gaia showed his compilation contributions on his original website), but didn't think I'd find it. They seemed so old, the years '92-'93 ancient history from where I sat in '97. Plus, they came from all the way in the UK, so what hopes could a kid in the hinterlands of Canuckistan have? Surprisingly good chances, apparently, as on one of my trips to Vancouver, I saw Ambient Dub, Volume 3: Aqua sitting in a shop. Holy cow, who cares if it was over thirty bones (and Toby Marks felt it was weaker than the first two), I had to buy it then and there! And wouldn't you know it, that same music shop (Bassix, one of the greatest vinyl stores in the Lower Mainland ever) was able to order me a copy of The Big Chill too! Sa-weet! No luck on that Earthjuice though.

Of course, like Earthjuice, Aqua has fallen out of my regular rotation for the fact I've gathered most of the tunes on here after the fact. Heck, some of them I already had, such as Original Rockers' Mecca Of Space and Banco de Gaia's Sheesha, both not exactly tunes I highly rated compared to their other material. Then there's the lone HIA contribution of Delta, a charming bleep-hop tune in its own right, but vastly outshone by Pentatonik's rub, which I'd already heard on Ambient Auras. A Postive Life's Hypnosystem is also here, though in an earlier, simpler form compared to its album counterpart. I used to prefer this original version, but as time's gone on, it now sounds rather basic and boring to my ears; praise album-orientated updating, I guess.

The Groove Corporation finally get their chance to shine in this series, their reggae dub-house Roots Controller treading territory Leftfield made their domain. Still, having finally gotten the actual album that tune appears on, means one less reason to play this CD now. The only item from the Ambient Dub regular players that remains exclusive here is Original Rockers' The Satsuma Nightmare rub on Banco de Gaia's Desert Wind. Even that isn't much to get fussed about though, essentially a dubby stripping of the original which is good for a little shoulder shuffle, but not much else.

Still, three tracks do save Aqua from complete listening neglect. Another Fine Day makes his Ambient Dub debut with the exclusive Wild Spirit Of Song, showing off Mr. Green's playful use of unique instruments and sample manipulation. Digital Jesus ups the tempo some into a brisk, almost tribal-trance outing in Menali Encounter, and Insanity Sect show off their ear for the low-ridin' potential of ambient dub. Oh, and Groove Corporation do a Balearic house thing in Your Heart, which sounds nothing like regular G.Corp, or anything else in this series for that matter. A very odd addition, though what was G.Corp to do, wait a few years for Ambient Ibiza to release it?

Various - Ambient Dub, Volume 2: Earthjuice

Beyond: 1993

I wish I had this CD, make my Ambient Dub collection closer to proper completion. Okay, I technically do, as I wouldn't be reviewing it otherwise, but it's a burned copy. And no, I didn't nab it off a peer-to-peer service – I surprisingly couldn't find it, at least back in the AudioGalaxy days. I wouldn't even know what tracks to look for anyway, so few details available to me beyond its mere existence.

Then lo', a saviour did descend from the heavens, a Lord That Knows All emerging from the darkness, curating all manner of knowledge regarding any and all electronic music releases (especially after I helped contribute to its vast tome of discographical information). And hey, would you look at that, there's that Ambient Dub, Volume 2: Earthjuice CD I always wondered about. I wonder if anyone might be willing to sell it. What's this, fine sir, you're willing to trade it to me for a burned copy of L.S.G.'s Best Of? Sweet deal, yeah I'll do that trade! Oh, you mean for a burned copy of Earthjuice as well. Eh, sure, why not. It's not like an actual Marketplace with official vendors selling items will ever crop up on Discogs.

And you know, I'm not sure I really need this compilation for completion anyway. There's G.O.L.'s Soma Holiday, A Positive Life's The Calling, The Underwater World Of Jah Cousteau from The Groove Corporation (or remixed from Original Rockers' Push Push), plus an original, inferior version of Banco de Gaia's Shanti (so limp sounding compared to the Black Mountain Mix). That's half this CD I already have elsewhere, so how important is it to get the rest of these tune? Very important, I says!

For instance, there's an exclusive HIA track on here, the charmingly retro-pulp acid ambient techno of W.H.Y. (...why not?). APL has an exclusive too, in Universal Message, a rather standard upbeat slice of bleepy techno and isn't as interesting as most of his other stuff, but hey, it's there! And why not, Original Rockers also gets in on that exclusivity action, with their Afro dub-thump of DeMat DubRim. And this Deeply Sirius Mix of Banco de Gaia's Lai Lah, I think that's exclusive, though save an extended dancier section (is this a live mix?), isn't much different from the album version. That ethereal G.O.L. cover of No Bounds though, that ain't exclusive, also appearing on their own album.

Yeah, Earthjuice shares similarities with The Big Chill, not only in featured acts but also showcasing a pair of tracks from each (HIA's second is Speedlearn, also rather retro-pulpy compared to its album counterpart). The only odd-man out in this is newcomer Insanity Sect, who closes the CD with their lone Psychik Warriors Ov Gaia leaning, minimalist techno dub cut Subliminal Air. As this track's over sixteen-minutes long though, I say that counts as two.

Eh, what happened to 21st Century Aura and Mimoid from the first compilation? Never heard from again. It's a... misssss-tory!

Various - Ambient Dub, Volume 1: The Big Chill

Beyond: 1992

Finally, after many years and hundreds (thousands?) of name-drops, I've come to the grand-daddy of all chill-out compilations, Beyond's Ambient Dub, Volume 1: The Big Chill. Before this, you had The Orb, Enigma, The KLF's Chill Out, and precious little else receiving much exposure, compilations of the stuff just not dreamt of. Heck, even those artists were relegated to 'top chart hits' CDs rather than anything aimed at mentally gassed punters. And while the industry was likely primed to cash-in on this lucrative sub-scene of post-partying, Beyond got there before most, thus credited with making 'ambient dub' a thing.

What made The Big Chill so brilliant at the time was how its fully aware of what was generating buzz for home-listening options in electronic music, offering its own take on each of them. The lightly jazz-n-hop vibe acts like Massive Attack and Nightmares On Wax were doing? Here's the Original Rockers, then, serving up a slice of Sexy Selector, but way deeper in the Jamaican dub. Or maybe the playful house-dub of The Orb is more to your liking. Then 21st Century Aura will hook you up with Disorientation, including a cheeky preacher sample running throughout (“witchcraft!”).

Eh, you prefer world beat? Here's a promising up-and-comer name Banco De Gaia then, sending you on a dusty caravan through the Desert Wind. Ah, it was actually that erotic Enigma stylee you were after. I'm sure G.O.L.'s Angelica In Delirium has you covered with church bells, chants, and Antonia Reiner's seductive poetry. No, no, it's that future leaning sound you crave, more in line with bleep and ambient techno as found on the first Artificial Intelligence. Fair enough, and Alphanex's Planet Hoskins serves that up in spades (or is that hearts?).

I think that touches on all the prominent movements in downtempo and chill-out music of the time. Oh, I guess there was Real Ambient too, and wouldn't you know it, Mimoid even inches in that territory, with the two-parter track Tree Of The Sun, Tree Of The Moon. The first half has a crunchy bouncy beat, that “you make me feel so good” sample, and dripping water (my dad quipped it was Chinese Water Torture when it played out on its own), but the second-half is essentially beatless, save a little acid bassline. There's also sweeping synths, whale calls, and dubbed-out sci-fi sounds, making it sound as though you're soaring through the cosmos. Quite a brilliant bit of dub production really, a spell better than Mimoid's other offering of Strawberry, which features an insistently annoying, distracting loop of “okay, let's do it” throughout its runtime. That's the only dud track on here though.

Banco's Soufie, HIA's Ketamine Entity (d'at bass!), and the proto trip-hop of 21st Century Aura's Something Started round out the rest, and a great rounding out it is. If you ever wanted to know why ambient dub became such a trendy thing in the early '90s, The Big Chill is all the evidence you need.

Various - Ambient Dub: Futuristic Techno Dub & Electronic Roots

Millennium Records: 2000

I first saw this advertised among a pile of promo flyers we'd get in the little music shop I worked at, and I couldn't believe my eyes that it was real. An honest-to-Jah ambient dub compilation in the year 2000, half a decade past the micro-genre's peak of prominence? For sure a couple acts were keeping that fire burning (s'up, Sounds From The Ground), but as the Kruder & Dorfmeister style had overtaken the downtempo scene, the O.G. works from Beyond had been relegated to the annals of electronic music history; this is, what, the seventeenth time I've written this blurb?

Anyhow, without knowing anything about any of the names listed on the promo spiel, I ordered a copy for myself because what else was I supposed to do? I thought ambient dub was long gone, but here was a label promising a return of the stuff, even being so bold as to include the genre in blazing big font. Never mind the cover art looked a tad dodgy and this could all be some false advertising. If there was to be a proper revival of the sound that opened my ears to all manner of wonderful sonics, you had to support any and all attempts at it, amirite? No, I ain't right, but such was my logic at the time.

So the CD comes in, and I immediately throw it on to hear what 'Year 2000 ambient dub' is all about and the first song has some Jamaican roots loops and a mild techno beat and is kinda' dub but in no way ambient. Thus, my fear had been confirmed, Ambient Dub nothing more than a tacky marketing gimmick. How could any label get away with such a blatantly misleading compilation title, promising ambient dub and providing no ambient at all? Who is the label anyway? Oh, Millennium Records, they of the UK Space Techno series. That explains that.

So I was disappointed my new Ambient Dub CD didn't have ambient dub on it. Then I actually sat down and listened to the darn thing and I realized something: there's some gosh-darned dope dub techno on this compilation! That opening track, for instance, comes care of The Rootsman, and is a chipper slice of roots techno in its own right. The next track comes care of Saafi Brothers, who I didn't know at the time, but are highly regarded within the psy-dub scene. They include Gabriel Le Mar, who appears thrice more on this CD, once under his own name (with groovy April My Dear, almost treading into prog-psy's territory), again as Dub_Connected (crunchy dub techno dopeness), plus as part of Banned X, their That's Dub a surprisingly brisk outing of trippy dub techno.

The rest of Ambient Dub (sans ambient) pretty much flits between dub techno and roots techno, and despite a couple weird moments (Outernational's Cape East predicts brostep belches a decade early!), is a solid assortment of the stuff. Clearly though, Millennium Records couldn't have called it Techno Roots-N-Dub or something more accurate.

Various - Ambient Auras: Diverse Dimensions In Ambient Dub

Rumour Records: 1994

Those early compilations from Waveform Records/Beyond may have opened my ears to a style of music I'd never known before, but nothing solidified my adoration of it like this particular CD from Rumour Records. Makes me wonder how my tastes might have gone had my follow-up ambient dub/house/techno pick been the bunk, forever deterring me from a new, promising musical obsession. Heck, could such a compilation even exist? For sure some dodgy underground rubbish looking for a trendy cash-in floated around, but with some licensing muscle behind you, you'd be spoiled in an abundance of sonic riches. Ambient Auras is proof of that.

Rumour Records was mostly known for compilations that didn't feature a pile of well-known artists, often exposing underground acts who may not have been just one studio dude cranking out tunes under multiple aliases (oh hi, Jake Stephenson!). In that regard, Ambient Auras is almost an exception, though to be fair, few could have predicted the commercial heights some of these acts would go on to enjoy. Way back in ye' olde year of 1994, Alter Ego was thought of as a side-project of Acid Jesus, Levis Jeans hadn't contacted Biosphere, Taucher was a couple years away from Waters, and The Chemical Brothers had yet to make their legally-mandated change of name. Aphex Twin was still about where he's always been though.

Really, Ambient Auras provides everything that was so wonderful about the ambient dub/house/techno compilation market of back-when. Even beyond the 'before they were famous' interest, Rumour Records dug pretty deep in their sparse catalogues for their track list. The Pentatonik rub of HIA's Delta (forever re-titled as Alpha 1999); a dancier version of Biosphere's Baby Interphase; Aphex Twin's On; the pure ambient outing of Undersea Girl from Alter Ego. Holy cow, what a killer's row of obscure tunes from famed artists!

From there, the compilation indulges in some actual obscure artists, names like State Of Flux, Neuro Project, and Centuras hardly on the tips of anyone's tongues these days. Still, they each bring something unique to the table, Flux's The News a pleasant, groovy dubby house number, Neuro's Lovechile' getting deeper into the sample-heavy dub, and Centuras' Tokyo mixing those obligatory world beat nods into a thumping, marching ambient techno soup. As for the ten-minute-plus Dr. Atmo Mix of Taucher & Koma's Happiness, it's a tad sappy, sure, but they sure weren't gonna' put the Spicelab rub of the same tune on here.

One proper nod to roots dub music later (Release The Chains from Centry Meets The Music Family), Ambient Auras closes out with the psychedelic funk of The Dust-Chem Bros' If You Kling To Me I'll Klong To You, and epic space-dub of Bandulu's Run Run (such echo!). How can you fault the diversity in any of these tracks? If you want to know why ambient dub/house/techno was such a big deal in the early '90s, seek this compilation out. This one has everything that made that micro-scene a treat.