Various - Hyperdub 10.1

Hyperdub: 2014

It's hard to undersell just how Very Important of a label Hyperdub turned out. Even if you excise the Burial factor, it's been home to many producers that helped steer the course of UK garage into ever stranger and weirder future incarnations. Acts like Kode9 (founder), Space Ape, Zomby, The Bug, Mala, Flowdan, Kyle Hall, Inga Copeland, Darkstar, Ikonika, and loads more have made their home on Hyperdub at one point or another. While I can't say I've messed with many of them over the years, I cannot deny the label's earned a pedigree in tapping unique artists that have caught my ear more often than not. Considering the UK garage scene at large is filled with redundant, generic, cheap-ass half-step beats and gimmicky bass noises, that's no mean feat.

I've long considered diving deeper into the Hyperdub discography than whatever Burial and The Bug have released, and while there are a number of Very Recommended records, I wondered whether there was an easier way, a handier way, a box-settier way. Why, hello there, Tenth Anniversary four-volume, six CD collection celebrating the label, how you doin'? Of course, even this set is a little old now, Hyperdub coming upon their fifteenth anniversary in short order. I don't doubt for a second they won't celebrate that, having done a little roll-out of their fifth birthday too, when all they had to their name were some critically hailed works from Kode9 and Burial.

Things really started rolling from there though, hence a quadrupling of material for this box-set. And kicking things off for Hyperdub 10.1 is nothing less than a double-CD of material, with all the familiar Hyperdub names, and then some. DJ Taye! Cooly G! Ill Blu! Mark Pritchard! (!!) Terror Danjah! LV! DJ Rashad! Too many more to name-drop!

As each volume of this box-set focuses on a specific genre or style of music, you bet the first would feature that dubstep action. Or, post-dubstep, I guess – whatever it was folks tried to label the Hyperdub sound (certainly not bland wub-wub). There's also, according to Lord Discogs: Bassline, Grime, Techno, UK Garage, Abstract, and Juke. What, no Trap? Sure sounds like a lot of rat-a-tat-tat hi-hats and snares among these two CDs. Right, trap wasn't really a UK thing, but they had a whole bunch of other names for ghetto beats.

And that's the sense I get from these twenty-three, two-to-four minute tracks, where drums kits, acid boxes and samples are chopped and screwed in such scattershot fashion, it feels like you're hearing music made by the slummiest of musicians too broke to afford any proper production or studio time. Y'know, real music, like punk rock, unfettered and uncut from the soul, technical limitations be damned. Or something.

I dunno. Sometimes I feel journalists made this stuff seem more important because of that supposed authenticity than any actual musical merit. Wouldn't be the first time that happened, especially in UK-Land.

Mick Chillage - Harmonic Connections

...txt: 2018

Oh, this is my first 2018 review. Well, anything from the current crop of ambient techno contingent had just as much of a shot as the dark ambient guys. With such limited CD runs, one must jump on new material the moment it's announced, lest missing out and resorting to digital (or worse, inflated second-hand market, the scabs). And Mr. Chillage, he always has an album or two in the works for labels curating this stuff (..txt, Carpse Sonum, Databloem), so odds were even greater it'd be him with the honour of breaking my 2018 Reviews cherry (what a strange honour). And if you think July is super-late for a First 2018 Review, might I remind y'all that it took until September of 2014 for me to review a new item of that year. Word up, Oliver Lieb's Inside Voices!

Of course, with as high a work-rate as Mick's, I've grown a little picky about what I get from him. I think I've had my fill of his chilly ambient, but he's adapted himself to other fields within the downtempo market, even inching into modern classical's domain recently. Ooh, might he end up on Dronarivm at this rate? That Between The Endless Silence album looks like it could have fit there.

But nay, what I'm mostly intrigued by is his trips into the realm of techno, something I honestly haven't heard him do often. Ambient techno, sure, itself that strange hybrid that sounds like neither ambient nor techno in their purest sense, but is better than calling it 'intelligent dance music'. Not contemporary stuff either, taking on elements of glitch and whatnot, but something a little more Warp, y'know, when the Detroit influences were affecting UK producers.

And Harmonic Connections does offer that, at least half the time. There's still ambient on offer too, though it's of an older vintage, reaching back as far as the '70s. Even the track titles feel retro, opener Beyond The Infinite almost cliche these days (because who hasn't ever been inspired by the Star Gate sequence of 2001: A Space Odyssey?). Tune's pleasant enough though. Harmonic Space, meanwhile, casually lulls about with spritely synth tones and burbling acid, while Infinite Acid goes deeper and weirder with its pads and acid work, feeding us some proper Berlin-School vibes.

As for the 'techno' jams, hoo boy, will your Artificial Intelligence triggers ever be flaring. Telepathy's got the easy-peasy electro groove going for it as a gentle melody from the Ralf Hildenbeutel book rides along it. Art Of Symmetry is about as classic Aphex Twin as one can go without losing yourself in Richard D. James' madness. Room 303 threads that line where chill techno ends and classic trance begins, while the final run of tracks does early Warp alum Autechre and The Black Dog right. Not that I'm fingering Mick Chillage as ripping them off or anything. Sounding like classic Warp at this late stage can only be treated as homage.

Simian Mobile Disco - Attack Decay Sustain Release

Wichita: 2007

(A Patreon Request)

For the longest time, I couldn't shake the notion Simian Mobile Disco (a spin-off from Simian) and 2 Many DJs (a subsidiary of Soulwax) were part of the same conglomerate. There really was no basis in logic or fact for this to have lodged inside my brain – the two groups don't even hail from the same country! The only similarity they have is they're off-shoots of an established indie rock band, with a side-career in music making, remixing, and DJing that got them greater attention in clubland. Perhaps my confusion stemmed from both growing popular around the same time, riding the wave of disco punk and (eergghhh...) 'nu-rave' hype of the mid-'00s. They seemed about on par in popularity in my region of the world, though SMD were quickly promoted to New Hotness in the British press, their answer to the French juggernaut that was Justice and all things Ed Banger.

That the UK rags would prop their homegrown indie-cum-electro house darlings to minor chart success isn't a surprise. A decade hence though, does Simian Mobile Disco's debut album Attack Decay Sustain Release hold up, or is it very much a product of its heyday, when noisy, trashy maximal techno brought the rave back to the clubs? Considering Misters Ford and Shaw have kept the SMD banner going to this day, I'd say they tapped into something with lasting appeal. More successfully than Justice managed, in any event.

What I find remarkable about ADSR is how it crams so many ideas in such a short album. This record's a mere ten tracks long (a couple more if you sprung for an American version), with only the opener inching anywhere near the five minute mark. The rest hover in the three-to-four range, all perfect for the radio market, though none of them ever played on my radio. I'm sure It's The Beat and I Believe were all the rage on the merry ol' 2007 London airwaves though.

And while noisy, acidy electro house rules the ADSR roost, these animated primate clubbers show off some fun diversity too. Sleep Deprivation is the right kind of thumping, building opener you need to kick a party off, while follow-up I Got This Down gets, erm, down on the electro-funk! It's The Beat, Hustler, and Hotdog provides the cheeky trash, I Believe and Love provide the singalong anthems, while Tits & Acid provides more acid than you can handle. Bury your face in this bountiful bosom of acid! And... what on earth is Scott all about? It's like a primitive, weirdo prog-rock synth piece from the '70s. What an odd, strange, bizarre, confounding way to end an album that clearly has cross-over appeal firmly in its sights. I give it three thumbs and a goose neck up.

Attack Delay Sustain Release does everything an album from this era should. It gets in, hits you with all that it needs to, and gets out before the booze ruins your night with French regret.

Carbon Based Lifeforms - Derelicts

Blood Music: 2017

Nope, this is still too weird to me, my brain still unsure what to make of Carbon Based Lifeforms being part of the Blood Music family. Leaving Ultimae Records, that's fine. It was clear Misters Segerstad and Hedberg weren't gonna' mesh with Aes Dana's shift into dub techno, so finding alternative outlets was inevitable. Maybe they'd follow Asura to the Altar Records camps, perhaps get chummy with another growing ambient techno print (Carpe Sonum, Databloem), or remain completely independent with their own digital Leftfield Records. The allure of vinyl out on the market though, it's just too much to ignore, and if any Scandinavian label has proven itself as the go-to distributor of niche vinyl, it's Blood Music. What I wouldn't give, though, to be a fly on the wall (a gremlin in the inter-tubes?) to hear the sales pitch on this particular marriage. “Oh yes, what your death metal label really needs is an acid-chill space ambient act – it'll totally bring in those lucrative psy-trance kids!”

Still, this new deal at least gave us re-issues of their old material, plus a whole brand new LP, their first in half a decade! (not counting some score work for the movie Refuge) Where might CBL's muse have drifted since the pure space drone of Twentythree? So many tantalizing paths they may have taken since, perhaps adopting trendier sounds like Ultimae and Silent Season's dub techno indulgences. Or maybe they'd explore completely new territory, venturing into the realms of shoegaze chill! I mean, they are technically on a rock label now, so it would fit.

Nah, guy. If anything Derelicts sounds like exactly what it is, a new album on a new label giving a potential new audience a general overview of their established style. It's a safe album in the Carbon Based Lifeforms discography, sticking to what's always worked best for them – downbeat songcraft, subtle acid, spacey pads, moving melodies – with a couple fresh ideas that even the eldest of fans can enjoy. Right, there's no MOS 6581 on here, but at least a little Potosynthesis. Really though, Derelicts has me thinking an album where Interloper and Twentythree were fused together – the immediacy of the former, and the spaced-out ambience of the latter.

Tracks like Accede, Derelicts, Equilibrium, Dodecahedron do the downbeat acid-chill thing, while 780 Days and Loss Aversion go for the wide-screen crescendos. Elsewhere, Nattväsen works another twee, spritely fairy-tale chill tune, complete with the requisite innocent-yet-creepy British child dialog. Mixed among them are plenty of pure ambient pieces, all still vibing on that Twentythree space drone, and mostly presented in tasty four-to-six minutes portions. If you need more though, closer Everwave is fourteen minutes of proper ambient bliss, so don't say CBL doesn't hook you up with the proper shit, yo'.

Dan and Johannes may not have evolved much with Derelicts, but it's still a fine album, their style intact and unique from much else out there. Especially on Blood Music. Blood Music...!

ACE TRACKS: February 2018

Whoo, not only did I finally polish off that seemingly endless backlog, but knocked off another main letter too! Yeah, it was only 'X', but gander: five albums made up that little block, which is more than pathetic 'Q' ever had. The next three largest letters in my collection are 'Y', 'J', and 'Z'. Kind of surprised 'Y' doesn't have many albums, as you'd think more artists would title their works with a 'You'. They sure like that 'No', tho'.

But yes, that means, after sixty-four months and nearly 1,400 reviews, the end is in sight. Baring complete societal collapse, I should be able to finish within the month that which I set out to do so many years ago – to listen to every item in my music collection in alphabetical order. Only... I won't be finished, will I? There's a whole new backlog that's been forming even as I was going through the last one, with at least a couple month's worth of material to work from. Not to mention the clutch of albums that make up “#, A, B, & Ck” that I never wrote reviews for. Can't forget those!

So yeah, even though I should wrap 'Y' and 'Z' by spring, I'm not finished, not by a long shot. I'm also considering a couple additional ideas, but will touch upon those later. For now, here's the ACE TRACKS for the month of February 2018:


Full track list here.


MISSING ALBUMS:
Various - United DJs Of America, Vol. 3: Josh Wink – Philadelphia, PA
Various - Rewind: Taylor – Resonance
Various - United DJs Of America, Vol. 14: DJ Soul Slinger
Various - X-Mix-2: Laurent Garnier - Destination Planet Dream

Percentage Of Hip-Hop: 7%
Percentage Of Rock: 7%
Most “WTF?” Track: Always the everlasting Oak Ridge Boys.

Obviously none of the X-Mix or United DJs Of America series are on Spotify, but aside from some of the oldest editions, plenty of their tracks are. Of course, if you really want to hear those X-Mix albums, the full VHS rips are on YouTube as well, so no excuses!

Because of the huge spotlight on those CDs, techno and house dominate this playlist, with a couple token glances of trance, progressive, rock, rap, synth-pop, ambient, downtempo, and country. No dark ambient though, which has to be a first in, like, forever. A very '90s sounding playlist, all said, even from the more modern tunes included.

Various - X-Mix: Hardfloor - Jack The Box

Stud!o K7: 1998

This is the tenth and final volume of X-Mix, ending on a surprisingly retro note. However, Stud!o K7 had a new-fangled DJ mix series gaining steam - DJ-Kicks - and the market for trippy home videos full of tekno musiks was on the wane by the end of the century. Like, who'd have ever guessed ravers could actually watch such weirdness on regular TV channels? No, best to wrap things up, maybe initiate a label rebrand in the process, and let X-Mix slowly recede from the collective memory as but a quirky artifact of '90s nostalgia. Makes springing for the DVD editions that much more tempting, right?

If tapping German acid masters Hardfloor for a throwback acid house set wasn't odd enough, the accompanying video is remarkably retro too. For sure there's still computer editing and CGI trickery involved, but more than ever before, the studios utilized ample amounts of 9mm film footage, splicing, cutting, and layering with effects to such a degree that... well, they honestly look like the sort of underground visuals you'd often see at clubs at the time, and well into the here and now. Again, it makes sense, the CGI rendering of older X-Mix videos easily capable with computer screen-savers by '98. Oh, you know if you went to budget party at the time, you'd find a Windows Visualizer projection on a blank wall. Unearthing '70s Hong Kong movie footage, however, and syncing it to acid house? Now that's art!

One thing I wonder, though, is whether going old-school was Hardfloor and !K7's intent with the final X-Mix all along. Like, I've no doubt the label wanted misters Bondzio and Zenker regardless, but might have they been expecting a more modern take on acid? I'm not even sure they could have delivered on that front, most acid of the day the hard, bangin', London Tekno Crew stuff, which Hardloor generally eschewed. Acid house though, in all its original, late '80s form, was basically dead, and at least another half-decade away from any sort of retro revival.

So aside from a few newer cuts of their own (because Hardfloor wasn't a thing yet in '88), our intrepid acid duo break out their crates of all the acid alum. Phuture is here! Fast Eddie is here! Adonis is here! Sleezy D. is here! Armando is here! Steve Pointexter is here! Dudes who like 'Jack' are here! Oh, sweet, even Bam Bam's Where Is Your Child? is here, a right-proper mood setting in the early going of this set.

Folks tend to forget just how weird and evil this music sounded when it first emerged, what with ever weirder and eviler music emerging throughout the '90s. That Bam Bam cut though, it never fails to send the creeps sweeping through your spinal column. I can only imagine what actual parents thought of it then. Or, heck, even now! Forget the obnoxious noise of brostep, Where Is Your Child? will still panic conservative sorts.

Various - X-Mix-2: Laurent Garnier - Destination Planet Dream

Stud!o K7: 1994

Even 'Back In The Day', there were a fair number of home videos featuring trippy CGI art with the tekno musiks. Few garnered as much prestige as the X-Mix series though – well, about as prestigious as this medium ever got. Studio !K7 (then Stud!o K7) had been dabbling in the AV market since the late '80s, mostly providing VHS tapes of alternative rock and punk bands popular in Germany. Somewhere along the way, they got hip to that 'techno' thing going on at underground clubs and love parades, and released a trio of tapes featuring such music dubbed 3 Lux. As there were no official videos made for tunes like Cosmic Baby's Cosmic Cubes, Alec Empire's King Snake, or Sven Väth's Caravan Of Emotions, !K7 commissioned original videos from various CGI studios to go with the music, much like you'd see on screens at clubs (so many colourful, spinny geometric shapes!). It proved such a success that !K7 rebranded the series as X-Mix in 1993, now with enough scene clout that it could provide fresh sets from top-tier DJs not only on VHS, but with a tie-in CD as well.

Though based out of Germany, the series wasn't rare on my side of the planet, even if you'd have to pay a significant import fee for them. Oh man, was it ever worth it, few CDs at the time offering as sublime of techno sets as you'd get with X-Mix, some Very Important DJs making their debut commercial mixes with this series. Like Laurent Garnier!

I've gone on about early-era Garnier before (prominently with his compilation album Early Works), but here's a refresher. The Frenchman served as a sort of bridge between Detroit techno and German trance, his sound often taking elements of both such that you could honestly label it either-or, and folks wouldn't bat an eye. X-Mix-2: Destination Planet Dream's no exception, ol' Laurent finding himself some of the tranciest techno on the globe (and maybe beyond?).

Many well-known artists make up his set: Underground Resistance, Derrick May, Carl Craig (by way remixing Brian Transeau's Relativity - yes, really!), Kenny Larkin, Dave Angel, Planetary Assault System, Galaxy 2 Galaxy (UR again), plus Hardfloor's remix of Robert Armani's Circus Bells, if you're not tired of it yet. Was this tune overplayed? Sure feels like I keep stumbling into it.

Most of the tracks Garnier uses feature plenty of flange-effects on percussion, simmering acid, and looping, spaced-out pad melodies, which sounds like old-school trance in a nutshell, but all in a very Detroity sort of way. Really, the most pure trance this set goes is Essence Of Nature's Blue Orchidee, but obviously a Ralf-Sven production would at this time, even if that cut's rather bang-on for a Harthouse single. We also get bleepy techno (Rhythim Is Rhythim's Icon), buzzy minimalism (Mike Dearborn's Deviant Behaviour), and a comedown finisher with Garnier's own Go To Sleep. Yay, a track that properly ties into the mix's concept title!

Various - United DJs Of America, Vol. 3: Josh Wink - Philadelphia, PA

DMC America: 1995

It's been a while since I did a “DJ mix series retrospective on the cheap”, and if there's one that could use another look while being affordable, it's United DJs Of America. While Europe and especially the U.K. were absolutely gung-ho about their vinyl spinners, many DJs in America struggled to gain much attention outside clubbing hotbeds, save the occasional crossover single they produced on the side. DMC figured they could make bank highlighting some of America's most prominent jocks, and started the series up in 1994.

Hot off the heels of his breakout acid anthem of Higher State Of Consciousness, DMC tapped Josh Wink for the series' third entry. Heh, no, that wasn't the sole reason. The whole point of United DJs Of America was to shed some shine on locales beyond the famed clubbing hotbeds of New York City, Chicago, South Florida, and San Francisco (Detroit was more about warehouses than clubs), and Philadelphia often went overlooked. However, DJ Jazzy Jeff wasn't part of the house and techno scene, ?uestlove was busy doing his own thing with The Roots, and Diplo was an unknown teen in '95. If any Philly jock was to get the greenlight here, Josh Wink was the man, a well-established veteran with discerning heads even before hitting big with Higher State.

United DJs Of America was Wink's first commercial DJ mix, and I suspect he was still in the feeling-out process of how to make one. It starts fine enough with some bumpin' house action from Murk and Madd African, but soon gives way to the sort of minimal techno and house that Wink made his name on, including his own pre-Higher State cut How's The Music. It's all very heady music, and I'm sure worked wonderfully in dark, sweaty clubs back when, but does it ever drag listening to it on the homefront. Plus, I'm kinda' worn out on DBX' Losing Control now, thanks.

But we all know ol' Josh for the acid, and the back end of his set comes correct with the tweakin' 303 action, tracks like Cappio Bros.' Caffeine 4 Daze?, Firefly's Supernatural, and ten-plus minutes of Tata Box Inhibitors' Plasmids doing the damage proper-like. A strong finish, though a rather tedious trip to get there.


I can't do a DJ mix series retrospective without some gimmick, so what better way to celebrate each selected city than having a guest review spot by someone famous from each location. And I can't think of anyone more famous from Philly than Rocky Balboa! What, I didn't say they had to be real.

Rocky: A'yo, if DJing is something Josh wanna do, and is something Josh gotta' do, then Josh will do it, ya' know? Remember, big arms can move rocks, but big beats can move mountains. Ya' know, they always say if you live in one place long enough, you are that place, and Josh, he's Philly, through an' through. He's a contender that refused to give up.

Various - Soma Records: 20 Years (Slam & Silicone Soul Mixes)

Soma Quality Recordings: 2011

A 20-Years party ain't complete without a couple DJ mixes thrown into the, um, mix, and Soma Records has plenty of tools in their arsenal to do the deed with. As is typical in such an event, one set handles current material, while the other digs deep into the archives, and the results are about as you'd expect. No matter how 'cutting edge' or 'forward thinking' or 'better produced' current material may present itself, it simply cannot hold a candle to the bonafide classics standing the test of time. It is what it is, so you can only hope that the upfront tunes at least don't embarrass themselves too much in relying on gimmicky trends of the era they came out in.

And Slam's set (the 'current' one) mostly avoids such pratfalls. The Soma owners grant themselves some leeway in plucking tunes that have been a part of the label's history by presenting them with contemporary remixes. This includes Diabla (Christian Smith & Wehbba Remix), Stepback (Adam Beyer & Jesper Dahlback Remix), Passage Of Time (D'Julz Remix), Lifetimes (Pan-Pot Bass Times Mix), Right On, Right On (Nick Curly Remix), and Positive Education (Zero T Remix)... kind of. That last one's actually a d'n'b rub, which just wouldn't fit in a deep, tech-house, techno set such as this, so Slam uses a snippet of bass while bridging two versions of Stepback together. Which comes after that Lifetimes track no less, so that's technically four Slam tracks in a row. Not to mention opening with the Deepchord Atmospheric Rebuild of Groovelock, plus the Oxia Remix of Human a little later after. Slam sure love themselves some Slam tunes.

For the most part, their set starts from deep house groove before riding tech-house funk to a thumping techno peak, indulging a couple detours into minimalist-plod (oh God, why'd you use that mix of the lone Vector Lovers track?), with enough clever blends and layering for the ardent trainspotter to enjoy. I mean, you gotta' love how cheeky Slam is in using just a portion of Groovelock for intro purposes, when Deepchord's rub runs over thirteen minutes.

Silicone Soul takes on CD3, and oh boy, just look at all these mint Soma tunes! Daft Punk's Alive! Desert Storm's Scoraig 93! Rejuvination's Requiem! Alex Smoke's Chica Wappa! Chaser's Destination Unknown! Funk d'Void's Diabla (Heavenly Mix! (wait) Silicone Soul's Right On, Right On! (haven't we already...?) Slam's Positive Education! (now just hold here...!) Okay, so there's a lot of repeats from the Soma Classics CD. Mr. Soul does a few clever acapellas and overlays along the way, but I'm kinda' worn out on Positive Education now, thank you.

Also, if you aren't fussed about the DJ mixes, the digital options for 20 Years does include all the original, unmixed tracks for your enjoyment. I usually stump for the physical, but damn, even if you stick to streaming sources, that's a good deal. More than enough music there to get the whole Soma story, and then some.

Carbon Based Lifeforms - World Of Sleepers

Ultimae: 2006/2011

I love Carbon Based Lifeforms. Adore their ambient grace, their manipulations with little TB-303 knobs, their sense of open spaces both outer and inner. And yet, even after a half-decade of nabbing a copy of World Of Sleepers (thanks, re-issues!), it's never quite clicked for me the same way all their other records have. Heck, despite hearing Interloper for the first time just this year, it stuck with me stronger than most music off here. Right, that album was almost blatantly immediate and obvious in its songcraft, but Twentythree was pure synth-pad drone, and even that's taken more residence in my brain-pan than World Of Sleepers. Believe you me, it's getting ever more crowded up there, though I get the sense a little memory degradation has set in. Like, I can only recall about three out of fifteen tracks from 1993's D.J. Club Mix Vol. 2 from Polytel, one of which being a lame cover of Mr. Vain by 'Club Beat'. Oh dear, I'm doing that old man thing of ridiculously long anecdotal tangents, aren't I.

Naturally, this isn't a problem when I'm playing CBL's sophomore album. After the slow, gradual build of opener Abiogenesis, where soft ambient pads, ethereal tones, bleepy electronics, and digital voices guide your synapses to 'wake up', you're damn skippy my body's ready for the thumping beats and burbling acid after. If there was any doubt that Misters Segerstad and Hedberg weren't worthy of being mentioned in the same breath as Ultimae's other key acts of the time (Solar Fields, Aes Dana, Asura), that opener should have quelled them.

And World Of Sleepers doesn't let down from there, follow-up Vortex a haunting piece of ambient techno once again playing to CBL's strengths (dubby pads, acid!), and Photosynthesis working another wonderful builder containing a melody that's on par with the classic MOS 6581. Three tracks, three winners! But after that, World Of Sleepers starts losing me.

The music remains all fine in of itself, it just feels as though CBL are retreading similar ideas already explored in the openers. More burbling acid, more lovely synths, more dubby percussion, more filtered 'science' lyrics, all of which kinda' blends together as World Of Sleepers plays through. Yet when I hear the crunchy acid work from Proton/Electron, the soft chill-out of Gryning, the gentle piano tones of the titular cut, or the geek-hop rhythms of Erratic Patterns out of context, I always do a double-take of “whoa, why haven't I heard this CBL track before?” I have, every time I've thrown World Of Sleepers on for a playthrough and unconsciously let it slip into the background of my attention span. Why does my brain keep doing that!?

The final track of Betula Pendula does draw me back in though, a gorgeous ten-minute piece of space ambient. Always gives me the uber-feels after, which keeps World Of Sleepers high on my 'Great Ultimae Albums' list. Why yes this 'list' is ridiculously big, why do you ask?

Josh Wink - When A Banana Was Just A Banana (Original TC Review)

Nervous Records: 2009

(2017 Update:
Josh Wink still hasn't made another album since this one. Why hasn't Josh Wink made another album since this one? Did it sell poorly due to the odd, cartoony presentation? Does he still feel squirmish about making 'album orientated music', even at this late stage of his career? Is he simply satisfied kicking out a steady stream of yearly singles, his DJing carrying the muse's load? So many questions, ones that honestly don't require an answer, but it remains a strange state of affairs that for a career as long lasting as his, Mr. Wink has never needed regular LPs maintaining it.

As this review was written late in TranceCritic's run, it's definitely of much better quality than most. Even at a rather lengthier word count, it still pops along at a nice clip. I even worked in an obligatory aside-rant about 'anti-builds' (on non-climaxes), plus threw in a couple snarky quips I'd totally forgotten about. Gave me a good chortle, they done did.)


IN BRIEF: Bountiful bananas.

First: there is no Higher State on here. In fact, there probably never will be a track like that ever again, from Wink or anyone else. It was an once-in-a-lifetime moment when that seminal acid classic was dropped, so you may as well stop expecting Wink to repeat it. If that’s the only reason you’ve clicked this review - to find out if he’s made another Higher State - hit ‘Alt + Left-Arrow’ now.

Good. Those who’ve stayed put probably already know there’s more to Mr. Winkleman than one or two big hits from the 90s but it’s remarkable just how much a man can forever be tied to chart success, even nigh fifteen years on. Ol’ Josh hasn’t let it tie his career down though. His record label Ovum continues to chug along with quality releases, his DJing career continues to groove along with quality sets, and his productions continue to, um, be produced. Well, he manages to continue to release solid singles, but has never managed to quite break that LP barrier, with albums that never seem to quite capture the same thrill or success of his EPs or DJ mixes. Wink himself has admitted that perhaps the fault lies in his attempts to make AOM (album orientated music), something that doesn’t play to his strengths.

So, it’s just as well that he’s abandoned that aspect for his latest album. The concept of When A Banana… is straight-forward enough: round up a collection of current productions that’s been getting live rotation, arrange them into a kind of DJ mix, and send it out into the wild. Surprisingly (or not), it works brilliantly, with each of these tracks strutting their stuff in strong fashion.

It’s the first half of this album that shines most brightly, with a variety of groovy house vibes, techno bedlam, and tranced-out bliss. Opener Airplane Électronique warms you up as fine as any house tune, with a funky rhythm that’ll have you wiggling along and a bouncy hook that gets a bunch of fun tugs, tweaks and tumbles twisting it about. However, it’s with Counter Clock 319 that you realize just how special of a producer Wink still is. Like so many of his tracks, he works a slow build before introducing The Hook (it seems many of his tracks contain that one element which can only be described as The Hook), which will get a thorough working over as the track continues to build in rhythmic intensity. Then, those crashing hi-hats and snares erupt, creating the kind of awesome thrashing climax Wink has practically made his trademark. The peak in Counter Clock is far more satisfying than anything you might expect from trendy upstarts like Dullfire or Radio Snore, such that- Wait a moment. That was only the mid-track peak? Oh shit, hang on, here we go again!

Actually, since I did bring up the former Deep Dish man, let me point out another thing that Wink trumps him on: what to do after the mid-track peak. I know Dubfire wasn’t the first to do it, but his single Roadkill really popularized the Total F'n Reset, wherein after a thrilling build, the track will just reset with intro beats, making everything up to it utterly pointless. Wink has a tendency to bring the energy down as well, but instead of using the Total Reset, he eases you into a simmer, which is not only effective in keeping some sort of momentum going but also in teasing your anticipation for when he brings it all back. And speaking of which, let’s get back to these bananas.

After a bit of murky, mildly funky minimalism with What Used To Be…, Wink unleashes a pair of tracks that hit all the right melodic notes. Jus’ Right is pure Balaeric bliss, but it’s Dolphin Smack that comes off as the most delightful surprise - you would never have expected Wink to produce a track that would have fit nicely on an early-90s Harthouse compilation in this day in age. It’s quite spacey and, dare I say, even trancey.

From there, Wink gets back to your requisite minimal-tech, although considering he was among the earliest adopters of this stylistic trend, the cuts offered here sound comfortable and assured. Yeah, there’s your usual plink-plonk-hiss going on, but there’s also, like, actual funk in these tracks too - imagine that, eh? He’s going to drag your head out of your k-hole whether you like it or not, and coerce you to do more with your feet than a half-committed shuffle. Finishing off with the soulful Stay Out All Night is fair game too, even if it shares the same status as Johnny D’s Orbitalife of an inexplicably overplayed track throughout 2008 (that ‘funky soul’ thing must have seemed like such a novelty to the minimal-tech crowd, despite the likes of Miguel Migs having never gone away).

Of course, When A Banana… isn’t revolutionary or anything like that. We’ve been hearing many of Wink’s tricks on here for over a decade; it’s his strong judgment of rhythm that makes it all work though. Unlike so many other minimal-tech producers who make dull plod-step beats, Wink’s veteran sense of the dancefloor knows how to get the most mileage out of the least elements, and he’s accomplished this excellently with these tracks. Throw in attributes his contemporaries seem afraid of (funk! soul! …melody!), and you have one of the stronger albums of tech-house to come along this year. Not to mention in Wink’s discography as well.

Written by Sykonee for TranceCritic.com, 2009. © All rights reserved.

Various - Welcome To The Technodrome Vol. 4

ZYX Music: 1995

I can't be sure, because sifting through ZYX Music's immense discography is like staring at a European phone book, but I think Welcome To The Technodrome is the first compilation series the label attached the nascent 'techno' tag to its archives. Yes, even beating out their main series, Techno Trax, by a couple years. Considering only four volumes were released though, it pleads the question why this one never caught on like others. Ah, my lovelies, that's because this is a tie-in with a short-lived sub-label of ZYX, dubbed Techno Drome International.

Their brief history is a little more interesting, springing up to champion the hot sounds of 'industrial techno' coming out of Dorcheim, Germany. This included acts like Robotiko Rejekto, Recall IV, and Pluuto. It petered out by '92 though, only two Welcome To The Technodrome volumes making it to store shelves in that time. Yet for some reason, ZYX continued the series, capitalizing on any brand recognition to flood the market with CDs. By '93's Vol. 3, you had names like Ramirez, Bronski Beat, Microbots, and 2 Unlimited taking up disc space. Which finally brings us to Welcome To The Technodrome Vol. 4, the last of them, released in '95 when the brand's original 'industrial techno' ethos was a forgotten footnote.

*Phew* All that word count getting the history out of the way. Good thing this double-discer has little worth talking about otherwise. I picked this up at the same time as Techno Trax Vol. 12, both sitting together on a used-shop rack, and there's small surprise why, nearly identical in style and tone as they are. There's a few repeats – Liquid Bass' In Full Effect, Alien Factory's This Is Not A Daydream, Paranoia X' Party Program - but it sure feels like more. Way to milk those licenses, ZYX.

Mo-Do kicks the compilation off, if you needed a reminder of just how ubiquitous Eins, Zwei, Polizei was in mid-'90s Europa. Following that, you get some hard acid (Ben, Ben And No Ben's Rotes Harr), a German trance tune that sounds like it's aping the melody from some synth-pop ditty, muddy standard trance in Submerge's Oblivion, and some straight-bosh 'ardcore from DJ Metz's Hey, We Want Some. Elsewhere, things get silly with Josh's Der Säbeltanz, a tune that might find you hilariously balancing a bunch of plates on poles while riding a unicycle. When it isn't going full happy hardcore, CD2 offers more German trance of varying quality, a couple worth a listen, but most well left in the past.

Which makes me wonder: why do I judge these jams so critically now? Had I somehow stumbled upon Welcome To The Technodrome Vol. 4 when it was new, and my exposure to such music was so fresh and so clean, might I have better things to say of it today? I cannot deny Teenage Sykonee would have been all over this back when, but Lord help him if he didn't outgrow silly nonsense like Moneypenny's Que Sera, Sera too.

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.

Jiri.Ceiver - Head.Phon

Harthouse: 1995

Jiri.Ceiver strikes me as one of those techno producers that could have gone down as Very Important, had things gone just slightly differently for the chap. For sure appearing on Sven Väth's lauded Harthouse print gave him plenty of exposure, but he had some tough acts to follow from the label's opening salvo (Hardfloor, Spicelab, Der Dritte Raum, Alter Ego, Koxbox). Couple that with the fact Frankfurt's brand of techno was coming off a tad dated by 1995, the blistering BPMs and hypnotic melodies falling out of favour in lieu of the functionalist warehouse tools Detroit and Berlin had started cranking out. Harthouse was finding ways of adapting with these changing trends, stating they sought producers on the cutting edge of “creativity and experiments that do not necessarily originate from the Techno/House scene.” - essentially an “idea tank”, though clearly they couldn't commit full-stop to the manifesto, the IDM wonks leagues beyond anything Väth's label would churn out.

Head.Phon comes close though, for good and ill. One Arno Paul Jiri Kraehahn was already an odd sheep out of the Harthouse flock, his debut single Multiplex a weird mishmash of Frankfurt techno and bleepy electro. He followed that up by getting deeper into the acid action (Hardfloor's influence was inescapable), but eschewed anything remotely resembling a hook or melody in the process. He was on a mission to feed you weird machine sounds whether you liked it or not, functionality be damned. Hey, not a bad idea, as techno had gained a reputation for being dominated by mechanical fetishism, though always in a far-flung futuristic aesthetic, not as a contemporary sound – wasn't that what Industrial was for anyhow?

Maybe Head.Phon would have been better received with that in mind, making no illusion you're in for a challenging trip into the experimental side of techno. Half the tracks are sonic doodles and abstract noises, some like Isolate, Retrospect, Sleeps, and Tne Poise so minimalistic and quiet you'd be forgiven in thinking the CD had prematurely stopped playing. What even is the point of these? I'm not gaining any deeper appreciation for electronic abstraction with them, and musique concrete was hardly in need for a revival in the '90s when so much else kept pushing electronic music forward. They honestly come across as begrudging filler to reach a full-length album, as the main techno cuts weren't enough.

And as for these, they're a strange, esoteric bunch. Hvb and Vacui offer up bleepy, squelchy Frankfurt acid, Trental400/5 is eight minutes of soft, minimal crunchy noises and bloopy beats, Ratio sounds like proto psy-trance of around the time, and Osiac... hey, this is actually at a reasonable pace, with reasonable acid and reasonable techno toolism. Probably could have been rinsed out ten years later if Very Important Techno DJs had the single.

But yeah, because Head.Phon was too Frankfurt for techno purists, and too weird for trance fiends, it got lost in the shuffle, as did most of Jiri.Ceiver's work. A shame.

Ceephax - Volume Two (Original TC Review)

Rephlex: 2007

(2017 Update:
I haven't delved into Andy Jenkinson's material as much as I'd like, and that's almost entirely due to his discography's lack of CD options. Vinyl, digital offerings, tapes... absolutely, but the compact disc is a rare beast when it come to the Ceephax Acid Crew story. Not having a steady label doesn't help either. After the pair of albums on Rephlex, it appeared he'd taken a further step up the IDM ladder in releasing United Acid Emirates on Mike Paradinas' Planet Mu.

That was 2010, and he's barely touched the LP format since. A few singles have cropped up though, almost all through Andy's own Waltzer print, so at least the project has kept going in some capacity. He might be moving on from the Ceephax stuff though, dipping his feet into the soundtrack business this past year on the Troma film, Essex Spacebin. Eh, never heard of Troma? They of Toxic Avenger infamy? Yeah, that studio. How on Earth did Ceephax hook up with those wackos?)


IN BRIEF: An acidy timewarp.

If rumors are to be believed, acid is on the verge of a huge comeback. Really, it’s already been burbling just under the radar of clubland. Acid house, in sharing a similar aesthetic, can often be heard in ‘minimal’ sets. Meanwhile, the whole maximal techno camp shows no qualm in letting the ol’ TB-303 loose. And of course those wiggly-squiggly lines never left the psy trance scene. Now that it’s been twenty years since the sound first exploded into British consciousness, you can be rest assured there will be a flood of retrospective releases celebrating everything acid.

In the meantime, we have Andy Jenkinson, one of the new breed of IDM producers who fell in love with acid and honors it like it’s still the early 90s. Well, that’s not entirely accurate. As the younger brother of Tom Jenkinsion (aka: Squarepusher), he seems to also enjoy making other leftfield sounds like ‘drill’n’bass’, analogue ambient, and even casiocore.

Initially the Ceephax moniker was established to deal with that side of his work while the more cumbersome-named Ceephax Acid Crew tinkered with trance. Hah, no, of course it’s acid. Anyhow, upon getting signed to Rephlex (founded by some guy named Richard D. James - perhaps you’ve heard of him?), Andy merged the two together and released two albums dealing with these different aspects of his productions: Volume One, from earlier in the year, featured his IDM side of things, while this here Volume Two takes on the TB-303 and ambiance.

And while he doesn’t stretch the sound too far off the beaten path, he struts his acid stuff with winning results. Tracks like Snifter’s Acid, Scary Pollution, and Cold War Acid has it bubbling and squiggling along. Elsewhere, Andy cranks the tweakin’ up a few notches in Acid Schroeder, Acid Breezer (have I typed ‘acid’ enough yet?), and Vulcan Venture. In all, it’s a fun assortment of 303 indulgence, but there is an elephant in this room that also has to be dealt with: production quality.

When I say Andy honors the early 90s, it isn’t merely with fanciful aesthetics; I mean it literally. Rhythms are incredibly tinny by modern standards, with under-powered sounds and arrangements that don’t stray far from techno’s raw roots. If you didn’t know better, you’d swear this was a release from Rephlex’s birth-year rather than fifteen years on. At some points, you have to wonder just what these may have sounded like had he brought his production into the 21st century. For example, Vulcan Venture is a smashing exercise in pounding techno, a beast of a tune as is. Yet what if it had been made with modern equipment? Monstrous is what it would be!

Still, once the album does gets a few tracks under its belt, these production limitations don’t seem to matter as much. It’s rather like watching a classic sci-fi movie: yes, the special effects are hilariously primitive by today’s standards, but when the plot is solid enough to grab your attention, you don’t even notice it. And the plot in Volume Two is indeed solid.

Or rather, Andy’s tracks are good enough to enjoy even with the unapologetic restrictions he places upon himself. Whether with funk or with reckless energy, all of his acid workouts will hook you in (well, aside from the go-nowhere loopfest that is Scary Pollution). But especially so with the lovely melodies he interjects into his tracks, proving there’s more to his work than a love of what acid can do for you.

These melodies manifest themselves more prominently in his ambient excursions, which bookend the album. Opener LW Traveller is interesting but noodles a bit too much. However, as a somber minimalist piece, closer Ravenscar is quite nice, even if Andy does get a tad over-experimental towards the end of it. Still, at least it isn’t quite as wank as the stuff he does in TX Ogre.

Ultimately, your decision to commit debit to disc with Volume Two will depend entirely upon whether you enjoy old school acid techno. As easy as it is be fooled into thinking so, this isn’t a throwback album; Andy simply likes vintage equipment and makes ample use of it - warts, limitation, and all. If you do too, then by all means hop on the ride with the Ceephax Acid Crew.

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

The Crystal Method - Vegas

Outpost Records: 1997

The only Crystal Method album you’re supposed to have, even if you’re not a Crystal Method fan. Hell, even fans might argue this is their only album worth having, a hefty chunk ditching the duo once big beat fell out of favor with popular tastes. I know I did, albums Tweekend and Legion Of Boom failing to spark much interest from me for a purchase. They still held a significant following with those albums though, which is more than can be said for The Method’s recent ventures into festival friendly mind-rot bosh. Not that folks shouldn’t have seen it coming - Ken Jordan and Scott Kirkland have long kept their foot in the world of commercialism, whoring out their music to the highest advertising bidders in Hollywood and beyond. The difference is they’re lost riding overcrowded bandwagons now, whereas back in the day, they were at the forefront of the zeitgeist.

They couldn’t have picked a better time to drop their debut album Vegas than the year 1997. America was tentatively coming around to electronic music thanks to ‘rockier’ acts from abroad making profitable inroads (heavy Virgin promotion didn’t hurt). Just so happened that a little duo out of Las Angeles was also buzzing, reppin’ the Westcoast acid-tweakin’ breaks action, but implementing beefier beats too. It was similar yet distinct enough to stand out from the likes of Chemical Brothers and Prodigy, and damn skippy American media was eager in promoting a homegrown ‘electronica’ act. Thanks to compilation duty on Moonshine, City Of Angels, MTV’s Amp, and TVT soundtracks, The Crystal Method was everywhere you turned. You could not exist in the year 1997 without having Busy Child and Keep Hope Alive penetrating your earholes.

Still, Vegas isn’t continuously name-dropped in reverence to this day if it lacked the tunes to back it up. Yeah, Busy Child was ridiculously overplayed, but it remains a fun slice of acid funk. And Keep Hope Alive will never get old, big-beat acid action at its crystallized perfection. Trip Like I Do, which had that Spawn tie-in with Filter, if possibly one of the best album openers ever, while Cherry Twist, She’s My Pusher, and Vapor Trail make for agreeable chemical breaks filler on an album full of killer.

Elsewhere, Crystal Method slow things down to trip-hop’s domain in tracks Bad Stone and the spaced-out High Roller (“you got it”), all the while retaining their crunchy acid sensibilities (I think Moonshine tried calling this sound ‘hard-hop’, or ‘trypno’ – you do you, Moonshine). And to prove they aren’t just all about those block rockin’ beats, a couple ‘poppier’ tunes in Comin’ Back and Jaded add vocalist Trixie Reiss to the mix, though Jaded is darn ambitious for a seven-minute, crunchy, acid-soaked radio jam.

If my mentioning any of these tunes had them flaring up in your memory membranes, it just goes to show the impact Vegas made on electronic music. Two decades on, it still reverberates and overshadows everything The Crystal Method has done.

Carbon Based Lifeforms - Interloper

Ultimae Records/Blood Music: 2010/2016

I didn’t think I’d ever get this album. Hear it at some point, sure, all of Carbon Based Lifeforms’ music available on streaming services now. Unlike their first two though, which Ultimae would re-issue in anticipation of a new CBL album coming out, Interloper only had its initial run. I’m not sure why they didn’t re-issue it with the release of CBL’s space ambient opus Twentythree - both Hydroponic Garden and World Of Sleepers were, with spiffy new cover art and everything. Maybe it was still relatively new, so hadn’t yet gone out of print like Ultimae’s older CDs? It wasn’t long before Interloper did sell out though, now commanding exorbitant prices on the open market. And since it seems unlikely Ultimae will re-issue any of their old catalog on CD again, yeah, I had resigned myself to having Interloper missing from my collection.

Then I caught wind that CBL were re-issuing their first three albums on CD anyway, plus vinyl options too. Holy shit! For sure it wasn’t Ultimae doing it, and I doubt they could afford it on their own Leftfield Records print (that’s digital anyway). Nay, they turned to a nearby Scandinavian outlet that specializes in all manner of record distribution: Blood Music. Wait, the death metal outfit that’s given synthwave poster-boy Perturbator a home? I… I mean… that is… how in…? WORLDS COLLIDING!!

So now I got myself a CD copy of Interloper (care of Blood Music. Blood Music!), and I have to say this was not the album I was expecting. Given the original foggy cover art and CBL’s ongoing drift into more minimalist songcraft, I figured this album would be the logical step between World Of Sleepers and Twentythree. Not in the slightest. If anything, Interloper just might be the most ‘pop’ album in Ultimae’s history.

The duo has had its fair share of sublime melodies - MOS 6591 from their debut undoubtedly their peak – but it isn’t their defining trait. This album, though, has ear-wormy melodies to spare. The titular opener hits you with an immediate winner; Supersede sounds like elements of Epicentre (aka: the other memorable melodic track from their debut) were repurposed for a prog-psy groover; Frog has an overwrought twee melody that could be an ambient track on a Solarstone album; M seems to have movie credits in mind; and Polyrytmi, after a lengthy, subtle build, erupts at the end in such a way that would have even Solar Fields saying, “uh, maybe tone it back a bit.”

Examples of the downtempo acid-chill CBL are known for do exist between these big moments, some with a few new wrinkles added. Right Where It Ends, with its treated vocals and unconventional rhythm, wouldn’t sound out of place on L.S.G.’s Into Deep; Init and misleadingly titled 20 Minutes adds glitchy beats; but by and large obvious melodies dominate Interloper, with a few vocals thrown in for good measure. A handy introduction to CBL for associates not so inclined to the underground side of chill-out music, this.

Psykosonik - Unlearn

TVT Records: 1995

Imagine, if you will, The Prodigy following Experience not with Music For The Jilted Generation, but rather something akin to Underworld’s Second Toughest In The Infants. Or perhaps The Chemical Brothers’ Exit Planet Dust followed with a record sounding like Paul van Dyk’s Seven Ways. Maybe Moby’s ravey self-titled debut with an ambient album. No, wait, that one did happen.

Point is, the change in style between Psykosonik’s first record and their sophomore effort Unlearn is drastic, such that you’d never suspect you’re listening to the same ‘techno jihadists’ that emerged at the tail end of the old-school rave era. Not that one can blame them for moving on; Belgian beats were plenty dated even when these lads were doing it. Through sheer force of pluck and charm did Psykosonik succeed, fusing their techno with EBM snarl and future-shock topics (Silicon Jesus, Shock On The Wire, etc.), elements they could carry forward if they were bold enough. For whatever reason though, the group said nuts to that, and turned their ears towards the realms of progressive house and ethnic-fusion downtempo, of all things. Funnily enough, when Unlearn dropped, even those genres were showing signs of creaky strain in their original incarnations. Yet once again, Psykosonik overcome such stylistic limitations for a second LP that could have been an early ‘electronica’ hit had TVT Records put more marketing muscle behind it. On the other hand, Unlearn is such a departure from what the label was promoting (mostly NIN), I’m not surprised they let it slip by.

The starkest difference between Psykosonik and Unlearn is how much the group has improved in their songcraft while finding influence from a multitude of sources. The titular cut comes off like a long-lost New Order tune, Ride works a thick trip-hop beat while indulging in darkwave tones and harmonica solos (!), Dreaming Real could work as a latter-era big-beat contribution to an action movie (of course), and I can’t see Sasha or Diggers having much problem working Alone or Object Disorient into one of their mid-‘90s sets. And for a group that just a few short years prior were getting all rowdy in the acid business, there’s some remarkably chill tunes littered throughout this album. Eye Of The Mind brings ethnic chants and acid together into tasty darkwave treat, Chromagnum sounds like Deep Forest with teeth, plus a few scattered ambient interludes link everything together into a continuous, long-player whole. And did I mention all the singing? How is it that I like all this singing? Well, lots of progressive house acts were doing it, so it’s fine if Psykosonik gets their warble on too.

Unlearn could have been one of those Very Important Albums of the ‘90s, but being stuck on a label more known for industrial didn’t do the group many favors. Even worse, TVT rejected their third album, jading Psykosonik so hard they disbanded, prematurely ending one of the more intriguing acts that decade ever produced. Such a pity.

Various - United State Of Ambience II - Mid-Atlantic Sessions

Moonshine Music: 1994

Moonshine wasn’t foolin’ in hitting the streets hard with their relaunch. Following their first forays into the ambient compilation market, they pushed out another acid jazz collection (no, really, it was popular!), two more DJ mixes featuring famed jocks Paul Oakenfold and, um, Keoki, plus the start of their Psychotrance series. Oh, and inexplicably, a CD that included euro house from Glam, Bizarre Inc, Snap! and 2 Unlimited came out in this bundle. True, there was some Prodigy, Atlantic Ocean, and X-Press 2 on Handraizer, but man, does that disc look dodgy for a print quickly establishing itself as a purveyor of sounds from the underground.

Still, what point is there in releasing a compilation if you can’t capitalize it into a series? None, says they, and Moonshine put out another United State Of Ambience the same year. Huh, that was remarkably fast. Did they have another selection of tracks ready to go or something? Perhaps so, volume two coming with a thematic sub-title and everything. Right, the first one had a loose ‘tribal ambient’ idea running through, but the message was muddled with an unfortunate spotty track list. Seems whatever mistakes were had on the first one were promptly corrected though, Mid-Atlantic Sessions a far lovelier, consistent, wonderful, and ace compilation compared to its predecessor.

First improvement is some actual star power up in this (ambient) house. No offence to Young American Primitive and Dubtribe Soundsystem, but few were aware of these names way back in ’94, to say nothing of Rabbit In The Moon side-projects. On United State Of Ambience II, however, we get tracks from Orbital, One Dove (with an assist from Andrew Weatherall), and Salt Tank. Okay, Electric Skychurch too – he was about the closest thing to an early Moonshine star anyway, especially his breakout track Deus, included here as the opener. One Dove does an utterly epic world-beat dub thing with Transient Truth, Salt Tank offer up their chill version of Eugina in Sargasso Sea, while an edited cut of Orbital’s funky Attached tops out the heavy hitters. Yeah, not sure where Moonshine got the idea of Attached being part of the ambient-scape, but why waste a perfectly good tune if you’ve got the license for it?

And though the surrounding tracks are mostly rounded out by unknowns, they hold their own in complimenting the heavy (chill) hitters. Ambient dub gets its due with Aurora Borealis’ Aquacular Subsun and Synthetix’ The Tao Of Dub. The ‘angelic ambient acid’ side Deus did so well is also explored in Somnambulist’s Deeper Sleeper and Influx’ Dreamscape, and Grain returns for another minimalist tribal-dub track in Sixteen. Best of all, no sappy Pure Moods styled world-beat!

Moonshine knocked it out with United State Of Ambience II. At a time when ‘ambient house’ compilations were aplenty, the label found a fresh angle to approach it from (psychedelic sky-church music!), and executed it perfectly. If you see this in a used-shop, don’t hesitate in snatching it up.

Space Dimension Controller - Orange Melamine

Ninja Tune: 2016

I thought I’d have talked about Space Dimension Controller well before now, his Welcome To Mikrosector-50 a most pleasant surprise of an album when it came out in 2013. Then again, I thought I’d have nearly completed this massive listening project too, well passed the ‘W’s, and maybe even considering taking on the first few letters again for this blog’s completionist sake. Then again-again, I should have known more music would have come into my collector’s gravitational pull, sucked into my domain like so much cosmic detritus. My desire to consume everything and all knows no bounds, more insatiable than an unholy merger of Galactus and Unicron (Galacticron?). Good God, imagine if I could actually afford all that I wished to buy? I’d probably still be somewhere around the ‘G’s! (so much fabric, so much Global Underground)

Jack Hamill, the young man controlling all this space dimension, has kept a sporadic rate of output since first emerging with the moniker in 2009. R & S Records gave him his first major break in promoting his early singles and proper debut album, but he’s floated among a few other prints in the meanwhile too: Kinnego Records, Royal Oak, and now Ninja Tune. Whoa, talk of unexpected developments – what would the Ninja crew have in mind with a producer primarily focused on electro and loving nods to Detroitism?

Releasing the Space Dimension Controller archives, it seems. Orange Melamine unearths material from Jack Hamill’s teen years, back when he was still figuring things out about where he’d take his wayward muse in love with retro sounds. Seems the UK underground was just as much on his mind, as this album’s filled with jittery, post-dubstep beatcraft, a style Ninja Tune has shown plenty of interest in (at least, much more than R & S). In fact, Orange Melamine has a fair bit in common with all those influenced by Burial’s romanticism of clubbing days gone by, crackling hazy recollection of music from a fondly remembered Before Time. Rather than getting all misty-eared over UK garage and grime, however, Mr. Hamill has his muse set on retro-future sci-fi, as heard through the archaic crusty technologies of the 20th Century. For real, when I first heard The Bad People’s opening warbling distorted arps, I thought my headphone wire had a faulty connection!

Orange Melamine is a conflicting listen, one ear firmly in pulpy futurism, another in nostalgic fuzz, loosely held together with scratchy beats like so much sonic duct tape. Even the track titles flit between such sentiments - Adventures In Slime And Space, Multipass, Melting Velcro Shoes, Leader-1 (wait, the Go-Bots character?). Other times Mr. Hamill dabbles in simpler influences, like freak-out acid rave (Los Locos, Velvet Gentleman), pure electro funk (Gullfire), or Boards Of Canada trip-hop (Volvo Estate). It’s also all rather under-written compared to later works from Space Dimension Controller, but that’s unsurprising consider Jack’s age when making these. Definitely worth a playthrough though, if only for a different take on retro-future sounds.