It's Thinking - Hyperion

Prime/Frame Of Mind: 1994/2018

Whoa, did I just fly through a whole bunch of “I” albums? And who is this Hyperion? No, no, It's Thinking is the name of the group – yes, I know it looks weird, to say nothing of naming the EP something that would make more sense as an alias. Then again, Lord Discogs lists at least thirty-six (36) Hyperions within its tomes, whereas there's only one (1) It's Thinkings. Right, I doubt there were a pile of Hyperions already floating about when this was released, thirty years removed and all – plenty of time for dozens more to crop up. What would one (1) more matter? So props to this Dutch team for thinking this far outside the box in coming up with a grammatically confounding handle when applied to a typical English sentence reviewing it.

This is another Gerd project, and up to the point of me covering his collaborations with Speedy J, the only one I was even remotely familiar with. Not that I was aware of it in that time, and truthfully, there still may be some other alias of his that never realized was him floating about my music collection. Fairly sure I covered all those bases though, so It's Thinking remains it.

As for the particular track I've heard from him, Dirk-Jan Hanegraaff and Mark Ripmeester, it was Afterglow as heard on that Excursions In Ambience compilation that included such luminaries like FSOL, HIA, PWoG, Banco, The Orb (sorta') and a few others. Man, and to think It's Thinking was about the most obscure thing on that CD, perhaps only rivalled by John Selway's Psychedelic Research Lab, and now I have an EP from them. Yay artist discography Bandcamp uploads, and all the legal hurdles they cleared to do so.

Since Afterglow is the only track I have, I naturally picked up the other single in the It's Thinking catalogue, follow-up EP Hyperion. Gotta' explore d'em deep cuts, yo'. The track is a pleasant floaty affair in the vintage Detroit techno vain, though utilizing a standard breakbeat for its backbone. I also love how none of the synth leads are quite aligned to quantized perfection, giving it that real live jam vibe. Imperfections reminding you there's human souls behind the machines. Onto the other tracks, then!

Frame Of Mind is basically Jam & Spoon's Stella, though stripped down to Detroit functionality and less outright Balearic. Love Without Sound gets closer to the seaside resort feels with subtle vocals and effects invoking sunrise in Ibiza. Plus, it's just downright groovy with its rolling rhythms and cascading synths. Funky Finger goes about as deep as you'd expect of a B2 cut on a record with so many shimmering leads, but even it gets in a few bright synth stabs for its back-half.

A charming little gem of a retro EP, Hyperion is. I'd expect nothing less from Gerd's extended discography by this point. Shame it took me thirty years to 'discover' more of it.

Arctic Hospital - Going Sun

Lantern: 2012

Bought with the same bundle as that ultra-obscure early '90s techno compilation, in case you care. I bring it up as proof-positive that, even if the old standard of rummaging music shops becomes a bygone activity talked about in reverent tones along with our sensible fashions of the time, we'll always have the Discogs Marketplace. Unless it closes down. Or shipping fees becomes so stupidly expensive, we'll have to resort to a bay of buccaneers forever after. Eh, streaming options? Oh, you never know when that bubble will burst (and it will too).

Anyhow, the point I'm getting at is Arctic Hospital is another artist I likely wouldn't have have found any other way than a trawl of Discoggian saleable items. It's over a decade since Eric Bray was seriously active with the alias, or any other project for that matter (so sayeth Lord Discogs). If there was ever any hype behind him, it's far in the rear view by now. Given the scant number of individuals claiming to have a copy of this CD, I can't imagine there ever was. His Soundcloud is sporadically updated, but it's clear Mr. Bray's prime music making days are long behind.

Which is a shame because, dang, if this artist wasn't a sweet, unexpected find. I'll go into his other stuff at a later date, but this was the one that drew me in. Yeah, cool cover and all, but when I listened to a couple tracks, my instant thought was: “Hey, this sounds like The Field. Boy, it's sure been a spell since I last heard anyone try sounding like The Field. Kinda' makes me fond for that brief period of electronic music when a ton of people were trying to sound like The Field. Those endlessly loopy, dubby, shoegazey techno loops... good times.”

Seriously though, that's about the easiest review I can give Going Sun: if you like The Field, you'll like this. Not that Eric doesn't throw his own little spins on the formula. The titular cut has fun with screwing with time-signatures, such that the loops almost trip over themselves just when you expect things to lock in with spectrum-pleasing repetitiveness. Except even that soon settles in its own way. Friend Amplifier twists around piano house loops, Colorstream inches closer to the realm of whatever neo-trance was supposed to be (shoegaze prog?), and The Folding Tree gets joyous and full of soul as vocals are heavily filtered through so many layers of dub. Only dud I can find on this album is the closer Natural Parade, if only because Eric's tinkering with time signatures and drum loops actually do trip over themselves whenever there's a transition. Interesting as a sonic experiment, but after following the deliciously smooth, loopy music that came before, more of a stumble taking us out.

One miss out of six ain't bad though (yes, these are long tracks too). Considering I'd never heard of Arctic Hospital before this chance encounter, I'd call that a win!

Various - Galaxies: An Excursion Through Technospace

Havoc: 1993

I came across this while perusing Lord Discogs' tomes for Human Mesh Dance material, and almost instantly, a wave of weird nostalgia hit me. Of a bygone era when garish CGI cover art and track lists filled with utter unknowns were common place. When techno was still finding its way in a post-rave world, unsure whether to go harder, trancier, or minimal. Where such a CD would cost you $30 at the local record shop (because 'imported'), a total gamble when that was, like, half your monthly allowance, dude, for something you really didn't know would be good or not.

Initially I was gonna' pass on this from the Discogs seller, not willing to pony up that kind of cash for a single disc anymore. Then I thought, wait, I totally would have back in the day, when such money was worth more than it is now. Screw it, let's take that Excursion Through Technospace!

And yeah, this was worth it, at least where my interests are concerned. I'm always down for unearthing obscure electronic music capturing the early '90s freedom on non-genre conformity, and this collection has techno-trance acid-rave to spare. Absolutely some of this will sound dated and simple, but you can't help but fall sway to its retro charms as well.

Specifically, Galaxies was meant to be a label showcase for Havoc Music, one of Human Mesh Dance's earliest prints. Taylor Deupree, the man behind HMD, would go onto more success with 12K, but we all start somewhere, and the sound of techno-rave was the fresh hotness in New York City back then. Along with Taylor, this roster included early works from Dietrich Schoenemann (those who know, know) and Jason Szostek (partner in crime with John Selway behind the Serotinin print). Plus an assortment of way-underground names like Virus Crack Team, Hydraulic Clownhead, Lunik, and City Of God, because a good compilation can't be carried by just a handful of dudes. Okay, it can, but better having a little variety in there.

Yes, there's surprising variety here. It may not seem so at first, the initial clutch of tracks doing hard acid techno and ravey breakbeat. Then things get way deeper on Lovechild (Rise), downright trancey with Video Hallucination, deep trancey on Circuit, then... deep house on Human Mesh Dance's own Heaven (Recovered)? Huh, wasn't expecting that. Nor hearing the sort of synth pads expected from a Pete Namlook work on Prototype 909's I Don't Want To Grow Up (the Havoc 'supergroup', if you will).

Something more tribal from Axon (Flux (The Tribal Mix)), something weirdly Balearic in a warehouse rave sort of way from E-Sop (Dream Is A Shadow Of Something Real), and back to chant-riffic jazzy breaks in closer Io from City Of God. Yeah, that FSoL influence could be felt even on the Eastern seaboard. Very well-rounded finish, all said, and quite a spell from the bangin' acid homage to E' Dietrich opened things up with.

Various - Fabric 73: Ben Sims

Fabric: 2013

Quite the time skip here, going from 50 to 73. What's remarkable is this is the first item out of Fabric's '70's block I've tackled. I've been close, what with doing Sandwell District's Fabric 69, but I've even done one in the '90's, Daphni's Fabriclive 93. For a time, that was the biggest gap between editions!

Makes sense that more in between will get filled though, volumes finding their way onto the cheap-o markets as time wears on. There's been items here and there throughout all of Fabric's history that I've nabbed on a pauper's budget, and now that the original run's concluded, more from its latter years will emerge. Will they be from heralded names like Sasha or Skream, or less known ones like Call Super or My Nu Leng? Time will only tell, but I can offer this little spoiler: the '80's will also get some coverage in this round of Fabric On A Budget, thus filling in every single numbers block in some form! Well, unless you also include the two '100's. I won't if you won't, though.

Ben Sims getting tapped in late 2013 for a Fabric seems about right. A stalwart of the techno scene since the '90s, he was one of the few chaps that didn't jump on the minimal bandwagon the same way so many others did. In fact, he found something of a comfy home getting in on more of a Latin and tribal take with tech-house, all the while filling in the gaps with the vintage bangin' bosh old school Drumcode resolutely held true to. As the tide of tastes turned with the 2010s, Mr. Sims found himself a perfect companion to the Berghain sound. I'm actually kinda' surprised he never got tapped for a set on Ostgut Ton as well, but seeing as how many of the club's jocks would regularly rinse out Ben's tunes, I guess that's close enough.

Anyhow, this is a pure bangin' techno set through and through. Just relentless, pounding bosh, tracks dropping one after the other in rapid success, never pausing for a single breakdown. Oh, there's periods where the bass will cut out, feigning a brief bit of tension building, but Ben lets the tracks speak for themselves, for as long as he allows them to anyway. What's most fun about this set is Mr. Sims doesn't even portend any pretension of fancy DJing, mixing seldom more complicated than a hard crossfade. And nor does he need to, these tracks uncomplicated and straight to the point, each unique from the other without ever clashing in tone. Man, after so many years of minimal's homogenized aesthetic, how refreshing was it to hear something like this? Oh, probably not that much by 2013. Can't forget that time jump I just did within Fabric's history.

And there isn't much else I can say about this set. It starts more on a tech-house tip, but soon enough, we're in the good shit, riding it out until the end.

Various - Fabric 50: Martyn

Fabric: 2010

Come to think of it, Fabric was being a bit ballsy in handing their half-centennial volumes of both Fabic and Fabriclive to upstart genre heroes like Martyn and D:Bridge. Sure, it'd be safe enough dropping another round of Fabric friendly tech-house or jungle, but no, there's plenty of new sounds making waves in the underground and abroad, and we're gonna' make sure folks know about them in our fiftieth editions.

Why do we place so much prestige on '50', anyway? '10', '100', and '1000', sure - adding another zero demarcating a whole new series of numbers is a pretty big deal. '50' though, is just half way to one-hundred. Is it because many fiat currencies rely on certain amounts for easy distribution, '50' being one of them? Honestly, in my neck of the world, '50' spots aren't terribly common, seemingly rarer than '100' bills. Is it an age thing? Maybe, but still only regarded important in relation to the century mark. Okay, that's enough rambling to confuse the Hell out of whatever A.I. bot is scarping this review.

Choosing Martyn for Fabric 50 isn't that far out of leftfield as it may have seen at first glance. Yeah, he was something of a post-dubstep hero in ye' olde year of 2010, one among a clutch of producers taking it down more interesting roads than whatever the North American bros were vomiting out. Mr. Deijkers was never strictly a dubstep guy though, having come up through the D'n'B scene on Marcus Intalex' Revolve:r print. He just kinda' jumped on a bit of a bandwagon when the UK bass scene was blowing up, had his fill of doing his own thing with it, and was just as quick to move onto other things, mostly house and techno (as many early dubstep heroes did).

While the full transition was still a couple years off from Fabric 50's vantage point, even here you can hear him testing the waters outside the familiar confines of future garage sub-genres. There's a couple Ben Klock remixes, a Redshape remix, and a Levon Vincent acid track (Air Raid). Heck, even his own Vancouver owes more to dub techno than whatever London broken-beat genre he's forcing it into. Small surprise it mixes in from 2562's Flashback, a chap who was already paving the way into such post-dubstep genre fusions that sadly didn't last much into the following decade.

It's this little tug-n-pull of what I'm sure folks expected of Martyn and what he actually wants to do that creates something of a disjointed set. It's good overall, don't get me wrong, just seems a little muddled in where its destination is. Does it want to showcase all the various facets of UK bass music as it existed in 2010 (the Afro-beat stuff, the bleepy stuff, the funky stuff, the soulful stuff, the dubby stuff), or does it want to steer us away from all that (the techno stuff)? For sure its eclectic, but feels rather rambly in the process.

Various - Fabric 44: John Tejada

Fabric: 2008

I've sure come a long way around to finally spot some shine on John Tejada. Dude's been in the game for over two decades (lot's of dudes like that at this point), and have even come across him in a couple random Balance sets over the years. More recently,contributed to the resuscitated Cottage Industries series, but I know I've seen his name plenty from dang near every corner of clubland. So it goes when you're a producer having releases on such Very Important labels like Kompakt, Poker Flat Recordings, 7th City, Touched, and oodles more. The usual assortment of tech-house luminaries have rinsed out his tunes, but Mr. Tejada's works have even found their way into David F'n Guetta's mixes (of course it'd be a track called Sweat (On The Walls) ...that's gotta' be a CB4 reference, right?). You can imagine, then, my slight disconnect associating ol' John with the worst of mid-'00s electro-sleaze while also thinking him more in line of melodic IDM wonks like Plaid.

I shouldn't be thinking of his more modern works though (or some of his pre-Poker Flat material, for that matter), at least with regards to what he brings to the Fabric series. I'm sure he was tapped for a DJ spot based on his run of singles throughout the '00s that brought him the most prominence. Based on this set, however, I get the sense John's far more comfortable behind the producer's console rather than the turntables (or whatever software used to construct Fabric 44). I'm sure he's toured some clubs for a little extra scratch, but Lord Discogs lists this as his first real commercial mix CD - the Backstock releases were more compilations of music from his own Palette Recordings print.

Actually, I think Mr. Tejada's most cozy rinsing out his tunes, as Fabric 44 features seven tracks he had a hand in (about half-and-half solo and collab's). John's also quite the fan of Shed here, at least three more cuts featuring Mr. Pawlowitz in some fashion. Also-also, this is the sort of techno set that includes tracks with titles like WAX10001, Equalized001, M Track 1, and Huba (Plaid's 15 Years Lost Remix). Lots of 'faceless underground techno', is what I'm sayin', even if the producers involved are some of the most popular chaps around.

Cool beans, then. A real rinse-out of real techno for the real heads, right? Maybe, kinda'? I was incredibly leery at Fabric 44's start, about as bloopy minimal as this stuff could get in 2008, but things do pick up into more traditional Detroit minimal. Ah, the Berghain sound is on nigh. Overall though, this set has the feeling of Mr. Tejada just playing tracks rather than building any kind of narrative, which only furthers my assumption he's more suited as a producer than a DJ. Still, any set that includes classic Orbital (Fahrenheit 303), contemporary Spooky (Candy), and obscure Pete Namlook (!) can't be all bad.

Various - Fabric 34: Ellen Allien

Fabric: 2007

Yeah, yeah, I know. How has it taken me this long to cover anything from Ellen Allien, and finally only doing so by way of a discounted Fabric CD? She's an intriguing figure, no doubt, carving out her own niche and brand within a heavily male-dominated Berlin techno scene. I'm sure if I take a full, proper plunge into her discography – albums, mixes, art – I'll find plenty of golden nuggets to gorge myself on. Still, there's always that lingering caveat that keeps me hesitant: '00s' 'Berlin' 'techno'. You know the era I'm talking about.

I'm not saying Ellen was just as guilty in steering that scene into the dry, minimalist waffle that turned techno into such a pretentious chore to trudge through. If anything, she was an outlier to all that, going more brashy electro during minimal's rise. It was the omnipresent sound whether you liked it or not, however, and being heavily involved in that region's music scene, she too eventually fell sway to what you were 'supposed' to be doing with techno at any given time, personal preference be damned. At least, that's my impression of her career in the years surrounding this CD, and in a way, her Fabric set kinda' confirms my assumption.

Before I get into that, let me once again throw some shade on the 30s run of Fabric mixes. Yep, yet another CD in this era that's been reduced to bargain bin lows. I'm now missing only two out of this portion of the series: Steve Bug and Robert Hood. I almost want to get them just for completist sake, but nay, I'll wait to see them on the cheapy-cheaps. Bug I could see happening, but not Hood – that one's been hailed as being good, actually.

The first half of Fabric 34 is the sort of set I was hoping to hear: an eclectic ride through various forms of house and techno without ever sounding too much like a mixtape in the process. A little vintage Larry Heard acid, a little retro-future Detroit cool groove (Estroe's Driven), a little propah' Detroit dubby freshness (Don Williams' Orderly Kaos), and even a little neo-trancey melodic charm (Artificial Latvasmäki's It Is Now Either). Yes, all the kinds of techno I've no problem hearing from the mid-'00s. That second half though...

Yeah, I didn't care much for this stuff back when, and time hasn't been kind to it either. Roman Flügel has earned his stripes, but Mutter is every cliche of wanky, plinky-plonk minimal you can imagine. Even that's more interesting than the utterly uneventful Plastikman rub of Heartthrob's Baby Kate, a tune that really didn't need going more minimal. There's also seven minutes of Thom Yorke warbling over stripped down electro beats, in case the big, bold, artiste sign in this portion of the set wasn't clear enough. I know Ellen isn't the sort of lass to bang out anthems, but this portion of Fabric 34 is pure navel-gazing tedium.

Function - Existenz

Tresor: 2019

David Sumner didn't need to join Sandwell District, already having a modestly successful career in techno for nearly a decade. It certainly gave him a significant boost in profile though, and when the conglomerate disbanded, he had plenty of buzz going for him in where he'd take his Function project next. A proper debut album on Ostgut Ton apparently, which was probably the most obvious thing he could have done at the time. But hey, fair play, the Berghain label about the hottest thing around, and a long supporter of the Sandwell sound before it truly took off. Following that, he did a collaborative work with Vatican Shadow, then got all chummy with Speedy J's boutique vinyl label Stoor.

Which I'm sure was fun for a spell, cutting lathe records live and all, but hardly anyone's ever gonna' play those. Sometimes you just want to make some music that will actually get heard. He must have had a fair bit of material percolating in his head during those Stoor years, as when he finally did emerge from that, he dropped nothing less than a double-LP on one of the longest running German techno prints in existence, Tresor. Hey, is that where David got the title for the album? Mm, yeah, no...

Anyhow, this is a dope-ass album. Overstuffed a little, y'say? Well, if you prefer some styles of techno over others, there's a small argument there. Like, if you just wanted a collection of clubbing tools, then the more experimental pieces like Ertrinken, Zahlensender and Alphabet City may not be up your alley. Or you're so absolutely done with Berghain minimal, you never want to hear it ever again, then sure, you could leave Vampir on the floor. Having a Robert Owens feature strikes you as nothing more than a decades old nostalgia gimmick? Fine, you can skip Be, if that's how you feel. All are valid reasons to critique Existenz, but personally, I'm all for the diversity.

Primarily though, it's that vintage Detroit retro-future techno that dominates, the first disc with the downbeat options, CD2 featuring stronger rhythms. Sometimes it goes trancier (Don't Ask, Don't Tell, Distant Paradise), sometimes housier (Growth Cycle, Be), sometimes electroier (Kurzstrecke, Nylon Mood), sometimes vintage Detroitier (Pleasure Discipline, Golden Dawn, Interdimensional Interferenc), and sometimes even ravier. Yes, the breakbeats in No Entidendes pushes that one into rave territory to me – nothing robotic about those drums – while Downtime 161's about as blatant a 'feel the gurn for a dozen minutes' tune as I've ever heard. See, something for everyone!

While this album is half a decade old now (!), I do hope it helps prove the modern LP format is better served offering diversity rather than a run of tracks mostly doing the same thing over and over. Not that I mind having a few items in my collection that do so (oh hi, Planetary Assault System!), but for a couple decades there, too many techno records seemed to forget that.

John Shima - The Empty Lands

FireScope: 2022

Seems the label B12 built has gone relatively quiet as of late. This album from Mr. Shima came out some eighteen months ago, and FireScope has only seen two more items released since. The ambient leaning Origins from Kirk Degiorgio was the lone record out from the print in 2023, itself a year ago, to say nothing of drawing a blank for this year thus far. While it feels premature assuming Steven Rutter had to scuttle FireScope or something, it can't help but seem like the label's best days are behind it, their brand of retro-future IDM and vintage, bleepy ambient techno having enjoyed its mini-revival, now done and dusted. Maybe it'll see another flurry of action again, but if not, t'was a solid run of six years.

If FireScope is truly mothballed, it feels appropriate John Shima would have one of the label's final releases. His Elements Unknown single was the first to break from the initial B12 run, even introducing the sci-fi style of cover art that was as much a part of the print's aesthetic as anything musical. I'm always for symmetry in my narratives, and even if this is mere coincidence, it's nifty seeing the FireScope saga end similarly to how it began.

Actually, listening to The Empty Lands, I kinda' hear why the label's fortunes may have diminished some. Don't get me wrong, this is still music I generally enjoy, but it cannot be denied Mr. Rutter cultivated a very specific style to his print - techno that sounds like vintage B12, for the most part. That's cool and all for a while, but when there hasn't been much evolution from that, it can grow rather samey-sounding. Save for die-hard collectors and completists, incentive to keep splurging on records lessens when it seems like you're just buying the same thing again and again.

If I were to take any of Mr. Shima's tracks from The Empty Lands and replace them with something from Elements Unknown or The Lonely Machine, would you be able to tell the difference? At their core, the sounds in play are mostly the same: crisp electro rhythms, smooth sci-fi pads, melancholic melodic leads conjuring vistas of metropolis inhabited by machinery and automatons. John's shown he can go other ways with techno on recent EP's like Tokyo Nights or CPU Modular 1. This is just the FireScope stylee, and you're gonna' get more of it.

And I'm fine with that, really I am. I like the FireScope stylee, and if this truly is about the last of it we'll get to hear, I may as well enjoy it while it's there. Kemx and Desolate have fun little echoing synths that sounds like robots singing. Depart, Desolate, and Mettle are surprisingly chipper compared to how moody the rest of The Empty Lands goes. Sayaka provides the obligatory reflective tune. All solid stuff, just stuff I've heard before, and doing little to distinguish from the rest of FireScope's catalogue. Seems a common refrain from me, lately.

Dub_Connected - Electronic Music

Liquid Audio Soundz: 2001

Amazingly, astoundingly, incredulously, this is the first electronic music album I've gotten that's simply titled Electronic Music. You'd think with a music collection of some two-thousand plus items, it'd have come up more often. Yet I've far more records simply titled Genesis than I do Electronic Music. Hell, in the 'E's, I have eight variations of Earth, three Eternals, three Everythings, and somehow three Elephants. I'll grant an electronic music artist titling their album Electronic Music may be a little too on the nose – even as early as the '70s, synth wizard Synergy had the good sense to name his debut Electronic Realizations For Rock Orchestra. And who knows, maybe there are several out there that I simply haven't stumbled upon. Some early-ass compilation series, right? I dunno', just figured it would have come up at some in my music gathering endeavours than another collection of dubby techno tracks from a Gabriel Le Mar side-project.

In case you missed my first Dub_Connected review, here's the recap: ol' Gab' was gettin' real busy at the turn of the century, releasing mucho music across several aliases and collaborations. Saafi Brothers was probably the most well recognized of the lot, having an all-star cast of artists on hand, but he was making inroads on all forms of dubby jams among other works too. Dub_Connected was the one that went just a little more techno than others, with a compilation of works released in Vol. 1 – Mind The Gab! This is the follow-up, billed as a proper album since its all fresh material mostly exclusive to this release.

That said, a good chunk of Electronic Music does sound like the leftover tracks from those earlier sessions. Not so much opener The Soul Takes A Flight, a brisk, smooth groover with a little vocoder action, the sort of track I could see Swayzak playing at peak hours back in the day. Following that though, we're deep in that gritty, dirty, dubby techno stylee folks would sooner associate with Bandulu or Psychick Warriors Ov Gaia, though with heavier emphasis on dub music's Jamaican roots. Which hey, I'm all for – it's what got me into those acts in the first place, and given the utter dearth of such jams out there, I'm glad Mr. le Mar had his stab at it too.

Then things get really interesting. No Vemba practically sheds all roots influence and aims straight for the streets of MegaCity District Detroit. After that, Tribal Sunset gets deep in the thumping minimal techno vibe while throwing some extra stank on d'at bassline, while Auto Mobilee gets as minimal as I'm sure Gabriel could ever allow. And just in case this hasn't been Detroit enough for you, closer Something Happened Here Last Night takes us out in fine electro or a moonlight setting fashion.

So an album of two halves, where despite coming in wanting the first, I left more satisfied with the second. As a good LP should.

Synaptic Voyager - Disconnect To Reconnect

Frame Of Mind: 2024

So I got into Gerd. Okay, 'got into' is maybe a stretch at this early stage, having only sampled a bunch of his releases thus far. I liked what I heard though, so sprung for a bunch of his stuff from back in the day. During that bout of Bandcamp digging, I came into contact with his Frame Of Mind print. A newish label that started out as a means of re-issuing his back catalogue, it's expanded to include other artists with rare material from the '90s, some of which never saw the light of day.

This here Synaptic Voyager seems to be one such act. I can't find much info about them, simply credited to Paul Baines and M. White (7), neither of whom have much Discoggian presence. A lone Discogs comments claims this comes from Sheffield, material recorded to DATs and sat in limbo for decades. I can believe it, as the techno on here is about as retro as you'll ever hear inspired from the Detroit Holy Lands. However, that scene was already moving onto its minimal phase, so this stuff would have come off rather dated all too quickly. Yes, even retro futuristic electro-jams were old hat as the '90s took form. Unless you were one of the O.G.s or Belleville Three, you had to evolve or be left in the dust.

Fortunately, three decades is plenty of time removed from all that scene pressure, letting folks who made some techno jams back in the day have their efforts re-emerge from the ether without preconceived judgment. Or heck, they maybe could have at any point, but it's nice having an established veteran like Gert-Jan Bilj give you that all-important seal of approval, hitching to his wagon and all. The first Synaptic Voyager record, State Of Play, came out a couple years ago to good response, and now we have Disconnect To Reconnect, coming out to... Well, I assume good response also, but this is so new (one month old as of this writing!), maybe the underground buzz is still burbling to the surface.

And yeah, this is techno as heard straight from the source, many years removed from its creation, with just a token amount of modern mastering. Second track Ne Plus Ultra will definitely get your Rhythim Is Rhythim triggers flaring (not to mention a little Frankie Knuckles), right down to those choppy strings. I'll give it this though, they certainly sound better here than they ever did on Derrick May's 'classic' single.

Oh, what the heck: this album's all kinds of awesome for the nostalgia feels. There's just no denying vintage Detroit techno continues to hit a sweet spot of basic body movin' goodness and earwormy bleeps, bloops, acid, and basslines. These tracks truly shine, however, when they're allowed to stretch to double-digit jam session lengths, just free-flowing over ever-shifting loop layering and knob twiddling. Eh, what's that, you didn't get the awesome extended versions with your black crack? 'Tis a shame, that.

ReKaB - Counting The Days

Intellitronic Bubble: 2020

Does this mark the end of another run of box-sets? Granted, these 'two-for-the-price-of-one' double-discers from Intellitronic Bubble aren't really box-sets, and I did skip the first volume featuring Metamatics and Futuregrapher. Still, I grabbed three out of the four, with ReKaB's Counting The Days at the end of this run. Counting to what? Whenever I finally got around to a review of his 'debut' album, I wager!

Yes, like a few other artists in these double packs, this counts as ReKaB's first full-length – heck, it's even paired with G-Prod's debut in the same pack, Space Time's Bubbles LP. Unlike that French electro duo, James Baker, the man behind ReKaB, hadn't been releasing much music prior to putting this out. In fact, of all the featured artists in these collections, Mr. Baker is basically the rookie of the roster, rubbing shoulders with scene vets like Lee Norris, Mick Chillage, and Devin Underwood. Well, this chap must be an exceptional producer for getting shine like that, even if its on CD2 of a double-pack deal.

That said, I wasn't expecting Counting The Days to be so mellow. I don't know why I would have come to that assumption. The styles of electro I've heard from those other Bubble albums being grittier and more menacing, perhaps? Still, the tracks of his I heard off the label's numerical compilations were rather mellow for electro as well, almost dipping into ambient techno as heard out of the FireScope camps, so I should have gone in ready to chill out on some future-city patios.

Only eight tracks make up Counting The Days, and while about half of them do stick with the relaxed side of robot music, there's some nice and surprising variety sprinkled about too, usually within the longest tracks no less. Space Echo Dub is, as amply titled, a spaced-out session into the dubbier side of slowbeat techno. If that don't get your Silent Season triggers flashing, I don't know what will. Unless you have another label doing the loopy, dubby techno thing as your primary reference point. That'll do too.

Elsewhere, the spritely synths and bright melodies of There Maybe Times has me vibing more on synthwave than electro. Ark goes as menacing as ReKaB will allow, a pulsing throb of a bassline the only rhythm offered while ominous synths and tones permeate the atmosphere. Then there's the trance track Drifting. Or neo-trance, if you must. Or melodic techno, if you will. Or hypno-house, if you choose. Or hypnotic-melodic tech-house, if you wear five different sets of socks per day. I'll keep calling tunes like this trance, thank you very much, but I'm sure we can all agree its a wonderful little space groover.

So another dope artist out of the Intellitronic Bubble camps. Now I gotta' get more of ReKaB's music. Which means I'm probably gonna' splurge on more items from the label. And now the sister label, Móatún 7. *sigh*... Bandcamp Fridays can't get here fast enough.

Various - Cottage Industries 11

Neo Ouija: 2022

It's interesting jumping ahead twenty-two years in this series, giving me an intriguing look in just how much the field of melodic IDM has grown in two decades. Or not, the music contained within volume eleven of Cottage Industries remarkably straight-forward when compared to the more experimental beatcraft as heard on the first edition (also going titleless for some reason, hence its alphabetical placement within my music library). Don't get me wrong, there's ample amounts of scatter, broken rhythms, just not presented in the glitchy sort of way that had been a staple of the series for much of its run. Heck, it was on as recently as Clockwork Manor, volume nine released just a few years prior to this one. Does the mastering touch provided by Futuregrapher really make that much of a difference in how IDM beats sound? Guess I'll find out when I get around to reviewing Decima Circuits (Cottage Industries 10), the edition he jumped into the series.

Not gonna' beat around the bush with this one: Cottage Industries 11 doesn't really sound like a Neo Ouija collection to my ears, but rather an off-shoot of Intellitronic Bubble or Móatún 7. Again, part of that likely has to do with Mr. Grétar's influence, his feel for icy-cool electro and techno a defining trait in those labels' discographies. Having consumed five of the Bubble's compilations (among other assorted releases), its an aesthetic I'm quite familiar with now, so hearing it here isn't that much of a surprise.

And to be blunt, I find that makes Cottage Industries 11 a better overall listening experience when standing it in stark contrast to the first edition. Sure, the twee electro-pop of early Neo Ouija is mostly absent here, but I'll take synthy future-soundscapes over that any day. Personal preference is a Hell of a critical bias, y'know.

Did I mention there's also lots of acid on here? There's lots of acid too, a bit more on CD1 than CD2, but plenty 'nuff leading this compilation further away from the realms of IDM and into vintage techno. If the spaced-out electro doesn't quite do it for you though, there are some skittery rhythms and distorted analogue fuzz tracks littered here and there. Downtempo ditties that hint at the twee melodic side of vintage Neo Ouija too (Novel 23's Step By Step, Xylic's Dinky's Acid, DJ Dorrit's Apotek, Daveeth's Pro Pos, Weldroid's Sandal Warrior Disarmed), but not that much.

Nay, as mentioned, Cottage Industries 11 feels more in line with what Lee Norris' other labels have been up to as of late rather than carrying on with its legacy. It's a whole new generation of artists doing their own thing now, finding influence from other sources. Some of them end up on Intellitronic Bubble, others end up on Móatún 7, while a few continue wandering the wilds of label hopping. For those hoping for a little extra shine on an established brand, however, it seems Cottage Industries will always be here for them.

Jon Hester - Converge Part I

REKIDS: 2020

I'm not only buying MP3 releases without much care in the world about doing so, I've now begun buying them from Radio Slave's label, REKIDS. If you'd try telling 2007 Sykonee that would be a thing some fifteen years in the future, he'd have bonked you upside the head for speaking such mad nonsense. Of course, he'd also have scoffed at the notion he'd end up living in the same place for over a decade, having migrated many places in the preceding ten years before. Come to think of it, that Sykonee would have been amazed at many things that have come to pass since, maybe even this music-writing thing still an ongoing hobby. But yeah, that whole 'buying digital from Radio Slave', definitely a humdinger of a what th'? now.

What's attracted me to his print, however, is the abundance of techno names familiar and obscure adorning its discography. I feel like I can just hop about release to release checking out whatever may come, and I'm guaranteed some interesting item worth listening further. Right, not everything is golden – with the amount of records coming out of REKIDS, how could it be? Taking a couple risks here and there certainly can't hurt though, right?

Like this Jon Hester felle'r. I know nothing about him, but crikey if that isn't some cool looking cover art. And a full-length LP debut at that? Heck, that's plenty 'nuff for me to scope this out, even if Mr. Hester catalogue is a total blank to me (various singles on various labels throughout the '10s – as you'd expect of a techno up-and-comer).

First proper track on Converge Part I is an eleven-minute outing called Metropolitan with a very loopy, minimalist techno beat. There's some conga fills along the way, but the main feature is a lone piano plinking about throughout. Yeah, it's got that 'Detroit goes jazz' vibe going for it, but I can't say the piano tone does much for me, neither funky nor uplifting in any meaningful way. Still, it's better than the saxophone tooting in follow-up Haze, but my boredom of the track may have more to do with my long-standing beef with the sex-jazz instrument.

Fortunately, the album gets into a deeper side of techno I rather like after. Rain has a mellow synth tone warbling about a fine shuffly rhythm, Dreamstate gets on that dubby minimalism action, and Free lets the trance pads soar. As for the final couple tracks, I'm sure Flex will get some Drexciya triggers flaring, while closer Equinox goes a little askew with its oscillating synths. Have I mentioned how any of these tracks remain quite loopy, never having much fuss in building upon its early elements beyond whatever knob twiddling Jon does his leads as a track plays out? I haven't? Well, there we go.

So maybe not the most exciting record overall, but I could see most of these tracks working in an early, warm-up set before the real techno party starts.

George Issakidis & Speedy J - Collabs 400 & 401

NovaMute: 2005

Th'ar be the acid! Just took a French touch to get there. TB-303 action aside, I have to say these Collabs with George Issakidis are the most interesting of the lot, and not just because they stray far from the regular techno workouts as already heard from Jochem's pairing with Adam and Chris. Okay, it's almost entirely because of that too, because in accommodating Monsieur Issakidis' aesthetic into his own, it resulted in some of most unique sounds out of Jochem's discography ever. Which shouldn't come as too much of a surprise considering the former Micronaut was also responsible for the Superior Version of Block Rockin' Beats.

As for how this pairing came about, I assume George was itching to get involved in the 'proper techno' scene after splitting off on his own – anything to escape the big-beat stigma. Some chance meeting with Jochem resulted in the two discovering shared mojo in working on music together, and here we are.

The first cut out of this, Looks Something Like You, is a ten-plus minute outing of steady, noisy bedlam. Really, it sounds like an extended jam session, the two playing all manner of filter and effects over the bare-bones acid house lurking underneath. While of a much lower BPM than the other tracks thus featured in the Collabs series, the intensity is no less gratifying. Hell, some of the percussion could very well be industrial, rattling off like machine gun fire and all. That may just be something for the 'old heads' though, as what was truly blowing up at the time in Francophone lands was sleazy, filthy, abrasive acid, so here's that in the form of Understand What I'm Saying on the flip of Collabs 400. Holy shit, how can this thing go for nearly eleven minutes, and never grow weary or repetitive? The warped vocals are fun enough as it is, but throw in all the distorted, clanking percussion along the way, and you have the closest thing to Speedy J going Ed Banger you'll ever hear!

Okay, maybe that was all a bit much for the techno purists out there, so on Collabs 401, the pair slow things way down on Overblaak, a quite minimalist piece where the TB-303 gets the most shine. Even here though, just the little things, like a mint, crunchy skippity-shuffle on the beat, has you hanging on every minute of its near-fourteen worth. Kaalbrevo, meanwhile, decides to get dubby on the distorted acid vibes, the duo providing a track that would fit snugly in a vintage Swayzak set. This, too, breaches a dozen minutes in length, but somehow holds your attention with every flange and filter effect thrown in. Not that I'd expect anything less ol' Issakidis.

Which is what I should say, if I'd actually heard more of his work outside this and early Micronauts. Time to do some more diggin' and he's got a rather skint discography after all. Mm, well, at least it won't take as long to sift through as Gerd's.

Chris Liebing & Speedy J - Collabs 300 & 301

NovaMute: 2004/2021

I initially thought maybe, just maybe, I wouldn't have to do these, the Chris Liebing collaborations well and sorted on the Metalism album concurrently released with the singles. A brief glance at the LPs' track list reveals three out of the four tunes making their way on, so nothing more I can say about them, right? Just move onto the next item and- oh, wait, that one on there is called Triflon, whereas this one's called Treflon. And having already gone through Jochem's penchant of making differing tracks with remarkably similar titles save a single vowel, these two will be different as well, right? Right. And whereas the single featured a Trezcore, the album has Acid Trezcore, while the Tricko on Metalism is a live version. Throw in a totally unique cut among the two Collabs with Liebing called Drippelzimmer, and yep, I do believe we have completely original material distinct from the album. Guess I gotta' get on that proper-like, then.

Or heck, I'll 'cheat' a little, wrap the two into one single review. Better for all, I wager.

Collabs 300 kicks off with the aforementioned Tricko, in its original incarnation. It's structurally the same track as heard on Metalism, a steady, pummelling piece of techno business gradually adding rhythmic layers before doing a little 'bring it down, then all back' in the back-half. An effective tool, then, but man, hearing all that extra club resonance and crowd hollering in the live cut... just can't be beat. Just goes to show how much more effective this stuff sounds live than sitting at home with headphones on. So much more energy. Just... so much more. Meanwhile, Treflon is a far superior version of the basic premise of Triflon. I wasn't much impressed by the bouncy, tech-house nature of its Metalism counterpart, but then I wasn't much impressed by anything among that album's opening salvo. Treflon may still over-use the crunchy-squishy percussion and distorted minimal vocals, but dammit, at least this version has a proper techno pulse to it. Still didn't need got'dang twelve-plus minutes of it, no matter how much fun I'm sure Chris and Jochem had jamming away making it.

Collabs 301 is kinda' the same, in that there's one better version of a track than as found on Metalism, and one lesser version. Okay, that's cheating, since I can't confirm nor deny there's a Metalism counterpart to Drippelzimmer. Really, any of the 4am warehouse bosh cuts could be one, since this is more of that. Quite minimal in its production too, in that there isn't a whole lot going on beyond the usual assortment of percussive fills and pull-backs. Again, standard fare for Liebing and Paap techno of the time, which I'm sure worked quite well in their sets. Trezcore, on the other hand, can't help but sound inferior to Acid Trezcore because, well, there's no acid. Yeah, it pummels just fine and all but where's the acid? Wh'ar th' ACID!? Nowhere she be, but on Metalism.

Literon & Speedy J - Collabs 200

NovaMute: 2004/2021

Sometimes I'm thrown for a loop in how many gaps remain in my electronic music knowledge. Granted, no one can know everything - even Lord Discogs, the Lord That Knows All, doesn't know all there is know. I'd like to think I know more than most, but even then, my expertise will always be filtered through what I am exposed to, and what I can make the time to expose myself to. When it comes to localized scenes that didn't get much shine beyond their regions, I likely remain rather ignorant of the who's who in the what's what.

Which is just a roundabout way of me saying I know nothing about Gert-Jan Bijl, the man behind Literon. He's apparently had quite a fruitful career in the lands of Dutch, making techno and other assorted sounds across multiple aliases and collaborative project since the early '90s to this day. He even got into the label business in the '00s, 4 Lux Recordings, still going... well, still going. Gerd is probably his most recognizable handle (Arkest's Blaze a groovy techno classic), though ol' schoolers may also know him as part of Sensurreal. And here's me, only having heard two tracks of his in all that time. One is Time And Space off Marcel Fengler's Berghain 05, the other hopelessly obscure. 'Tis a single cut on the compilation Excursions In Ambience, Afterglow, as part of the trio It's Thinking, including Mark Ripmeester and Dirk-Jan Hanegraaff. Hell, that's not even the trio's most successful alias, that honour going to Sunshower.

Anyhow, even if the fruitful career of Mr. Bijl came as a surprise to me, that he would collab' with one of the Netherlands' most famous techno sons in Speedy J is not. Far as I can tell, Literon was Gert's alias used whenever he wanted to go a little more Detroit than Euro in his techno, but was rather flexible overall – I even get a hint of trance in the track Villar Kone! Since bangin' 4am business was where techno was going at the turn of the century, so did Literon, and what better time to mesh musical ideas with Jochem than then?

Track one Snacker is a serious thumper, but aside from rattling percussion and abrassive, noisy fills, doesn't do much beyond standard techno tools stuff for its eight minute duration. Still, wonderful space between all these sounds, much more so compared to the bricked nature of the Adam Beyer collab'. Knicker on the flip is definitely the more interesting of the pair, more of a tech-house stomper with a seriously twitchy, almost glitchy rhythm. If anything was going to give off the Detroit vibes you might have expected going into this (a long stretch, I'll grant), then this track gets there reasonably well. And at keeping its length under six minutes, its loopy nature doesn't overstay its welcome.

To be honest though, I'm far more interested in digging into Gerd's extended discography than replaying these tracks anytime soon.

Adam Beyer & Speedy J - Collabs 100

NovaMute: 2003/2021

Is this finally the end, my friends? Have we come the conclusion of these Speedy J reviews, the Collabs series all that remains? Well, of what I got from that initial Bandcamp bulk buy, yes. Wouldn't you know it though, Jochem added a couple more singles after the fact, a two-EP run as The Melody. Not to mention everything else he's released from 2010 on. Can't say I'm inclined to complete the total collection at this point, well and truly sated on all things Speedy J for now. Well, maybe that Nice EP - I like it whenever Mr. Paap throws actual melody into his tunes, even if only back in the day.

Yeah, I don't think there's any beating around the bush in knowing what we're in for here. To this day, Adam Beyer is known as that uncompromising dude rinsing out uncompromising techno, making a tidy business for himself out of it. This came out in the early days of that movement, before everything went completely M_nus minimal, Beyer and his cohorts at the top of this european techno domain. As Speedy J's Loudboxer was part of this movement, its natural that he'd work with these lads in churning out a few records here and there. Collabs 100 was the first, picking up right where the Loudboxer singles left off.

Come to think of it, I'm not entirely sure where Adam Beyer ends and Speedy J begins with these two cuts. I'll grant this is more to do with the unfamiliarity I have with Adam's general body of work, knowing him more for his aesthetics than particular production tricks. I'd assume the little bit of body movin' bassline in Sjab is his contribution, as I don't recall many of Jochem's music containing something like that. It's certainly repetitive enough to fit the Beyer mold. Does that mean the industrial clanking and sketchy synth stabs are Speedy's work? Why am I even psycho-analyzing such a relentlessly boshing track? This is straight-up 4am warehouse workout music, pummelling from the get-go, going full bore for a good eight minutes, save a requisite mid-track breather. There's a few fun flange moments towards the end, and provides a nice minute-long wind-down, leading me to believe Sjab was strictly constructed as a set ender. I mean, what else could you follow such an intense track up with?

A b-side called Basj, I guess, though obviously not in the same set. Or maybe in the earlier portions of said set. Regardless, it's not as bang-on as Sjab, actually somewhat subtle in comparison. What it really reminds me of though, L.S.G.'s The Train Of Thought! It's the sporadic splashes of dubby echo, y'see, not to mention just how frenetic the rhythms sounds, not much removed from Oliver Lieb's tech-trance opus. For sure this is still firmly in techno's domain, but considering how unmelodic and stale the genre would soon become, hearing something like this is quite nice indeed.

Tune - Change The Beat

R & S Records: 1991/2021

This has to be Jochem's most obscure project. Yeah, those in the know know who it is, while R & S Records is hardly some dingy underground techno label lost to the mists of time. If I hadn't told you this was from Speedy J though, would you even be able to tell? Okay, maybe if you sat down and listened to the darn thing, you could, though you'd have to have a near perfect memory of all his early '90s works to work that out.

More what I'm getting at though, is the alias he chose for this is the most nondescript thing you could imagine. Obviously he couldn't just use Speedy J again, as that was a Plus 8 exclusive. No, wait, Jochem used that name for Pull Over as well, and that came out on Music Man Records the same year. Maybe he wanted to completely distance himself from it, as R & S wasn't seen as quite the serious techno label yet, with their own pile of rave producers – C.J. Bolland, Joey Beltram, Human Resource, and the like. Don't worry though, you'll be called 'The Belgian Warp' soon enough. Just wait until their Apollo sub-label launches, then you're in for some real serious shit!

Where was I? Oh, right, Tune. What's up with such a plain-jane name like that? Was Jochem just hard pressed to come up with something when submitting these tracks for pressing? Did he figure they wouldn't have much hope of standing out among R & S' heavy hitters, so here's an utterly forgettable one before receding back to the comforting embrace of the Detroit upstart? He certainly never felt compelled to return to this alias or R & S, Change The Beat his lone contribution to either. Hell, even Public Energy got two singles out of Jochem.

I can't deny, I almost had Pull Over worry in the way the titular cut starts, a stupidly simple note played over a thudding beat and off-beat bassline. Things actually get a little more clever along the way though, a lone backing string added, some sparkly synths bringing flair, and a couple decent little bass drop fills. When everything finally gets going in full motion, including a pleasant little pad melody, I'm ready for things to properly take off for- oh, the track's already done. Dang, wish he'd gotten to the good stuff sooner.

Tonight is the 'funner' track though, what with vibrant rhythms, orchestral stings, and gnarly synths winding about. Yeah, this definitely fits better on the Belgian rave label. Just to remind folks he's actually a Dutch-Detroit techno producer though, b-side Extrasensory gets on that Motor City retro-future jam session. And unlike the other two, this track gets an extra couple minutes to strut its stuff. Not sure what folks coming into this expecting Dominators would think, but surely European ravers were aware of music such as this, right? Or were they only hankering for hoovers and pianos?

Speedy J - Bugmod

NovaMute: 2002/2021

The last single to be properly spun off from Loudboxer, this. Yes, I know Tanga kinda'-sorta' was too, but none of those tracks featured on the album, no matter what the similar artwork suggests. Speaking of, holy cow, I can't believe I didn't notice it before, but gander at that black stripe beside Bugmod there. Know what's under it? It's Krekc! And Tanga had both this and Krekc blotted out in white above as well. Oh man, I love it when spin-off singles maintain a running theme – makes them feel more like part of a proper series than some disjointed association.

But wait, you say, there be no Bugmod on Loudboxer either. Is this another Tanga situation, where we'll get a Bugmod, a Buugmod, and a Bugmood? No, but we do get a little more Krikc and Krekc, by way of remixes. The other two tracks on this EP are strictly Speedy J originals, so let's have a listen in.

And Bugmod pretty much picks up where the rest of Loudboxer left off, an unrelenting pummelling of percussion, the snare and hi-hats tasting a touch of flange. An off-beat bleep is the only thing resembling any sort of hook, but earworms is not the point of this cut. There's also a nifty little 'fade it down, bring it all back' peak, which makes Bugmod a little more useful for set construction than just another tool to throw down, but better be quick on your next draw, 'cause this track ends quite abruptly. On the flip, Glov at first seems like it might be the 'deeper' option, the pounding beatcraft simpler and steady. Then what's this? An actual hook? Okay, it's still just synth stabs keeping pace with the rhythm, but they build upon each other, retreat, coalesce, retreat, and so on. It's the closest thing to a melody that Jochem gives out of the whole Loudboxer enterprise, and you'll love it, darn it all!

The remixes, then. DJ Rush handles the first, on Krekc. I'm not really familiar with this techno veteran, though he is Jeff Mills Approved, so there's that. Lord Discogs also tells me I have at least one other of his tracks, on... wait djmixed.com/keoki? Really!? Haha, never would have expected that. Anyhow, his go with Krekc is pretty much more techno bosh, with a little transistor tweeting knob twiddlin'.

On the other end is Umek, who I definitely know, so no need to get into details there. He gets to have a go with Krikc and holy cow, is this ever a blinder of a cut. I'd actually forgotten just how much of a banger the original is, and Umek sees no point in taming this beast for his use. Instead, he throws in an actual hook, a simple sweeping little thing oscillating as it carries on. It's not even harsh or gritty as you'd expect of techno in this vein, surprisingly gentle on the ears even as the beats punch your chest cavity into submission.