Marnie - Crystal World

Les Disques Du Crépuscule: 2013

This is what I mean. Just look at this cover! I know that's Helen Marnie posing there, a somewhat sultry glance your way with latex (rubber?) leggings propped high against the wall. It's something I can easily see a fly-by-night pop starlet do, but the lead singer of Ladytron? The band that's maintained a stoic aesthetic no matter what era of their existence (including that Yo Gabba Gabba! guest spot ...yes, really!). My brain has a difficult time processing it, adjusting to a Ms. Marnie that didn't know could exist. Like, was she always lurking there all along, but didn't want to upset the Ladytron apple cart in all these years? Had she not fallen in with those synth dorks, might Helen have taken a stab at a solo album much earlier in her career? Would such a solo career have led her to retro synth music just the same, or might she have been lured elsewhere, like Brit-pop bollocks? Eh, I can't imagine that, no matter what twisted time-line we find ourselves in. Her muse definitely seems fixated on the ethereal synth-pop of 4AD lore.

Besides, if you squint your ears enough, Crystal World isn't that far removed from the roads Ladytron had been travelling up to that point. She already has fellow 'Tron member Daniel Hunt helping her out in the studio, so really Ms. Marnie's debut solo is like a Ladytron album, just without the other lady or the guy who adds much of the 'tron' to the sound. A slickly produced and polished record, then, retaining much of the songwriting but unencumbered by ultra-retro analog synth noises. Now now, not everyone's a fan of modular Moogs.

Thus the album opens with a sweeping ethereal cry, building upon soft synths and rhythms thick with '80s reverb. Marnie finally drops some poetic nuggets about being The Hunter, and oh man oh man am I ever getting Clannad flashes here – the band, not the anime. Damn, the Irish synth-folk group is even fronted by a lass named Máire Ní Bhraonáin. Too much coincidence for one brain to handle, mang!

Crystal World isn't a total throwback though, production more contemporary than even Ladytron's output typically is. We Are The Sea features a sludgy electro-pop beat, while tracks like High Road, Violet Affair and Submariner touch upon the indie scene's fascination with '60 dream pop. Heck, Submariner sounds like something off Gorillaz' Plastic Beach.

In fact, there's a lot of familiar songwriting on here, melodies that you'll swear you've heard elsewhere (dear God, is Sugarland ever driving me crazy that way). That's not to say Marnie's style-biting, as she owns every piece of music she sings and crafts here. There's just little in the way of challenging synth-pop on hand, Helen more focused on the lyrical content of her work. And hoo, do I ever get swept away by her voice, but then I did even when she sang about mundane things like taking girls to movies. No blame.

Boogie Down Productions - Criminal Minded

B-Boy Records/Traffic Entertainment Group: 1987/2016

Can't be a hip-hop completist without having Boogie Down Productions in your collection. Not that I'm under any delusion I'm a completist - I'm in no hurry to add Biggie, Jay-Z, or Lil' Wayne to my rap shelf (far right, lower third). Just saying, if you want hip-hop heads taking you seriously, the group KRS-One built is required study material, this debut album from the BDP posse a Very Important rap album from the '80s. A remarkable feat, considering there's no Rick Rubin or Def Jam association with Criminal Minded. Can't escape the influence of an AC/DC sample in Dope Beat though. But hey, a ton of hip-hop culture cribbed from Boogie Down Productions after, so fair play.

Like gangsta' rap! Only, Criminal Minded isn't gangsta' rap at all, at least not in the way N.W.A. would define it. No doubt KRS-One gets into some gritty street tales, like resorting to gun violence to save his ass from home invaders in 9mm Goes Bang, or dealing with a crack whore in Remix For P Is Free. That's only two tracks out of ten though, hardly enough material to consider this album gangsta' rap through and through. Hell, such tracks aren't even playing up the 'gangsta' lifestyle, no more than Grandmaster Flash's The Message does (and it doesn't). It's that cover art, isn't it, KRS and DJ Scott La Rock all decked out in a small arsenal. Definitely a first of its kind, rappers showing off their guns and ammo rather than their sneakers and jewellery, though seems overplayed for the sake of marketing here. Gotta' draw attention from that crashed jet on License To Ill somehow.

Beyond all that though, Criminal Minded still has its feet within the realm of old-school hip-hop. The beats are simple boom-bap and quick-cut sampling (rock and James Brown, naturally), with Scott La Rock scratching between KRS-One's verses. Meanwhile, Mr. Parker goes off on a variety of topics, mostly showing off his lyrical prowess (Poetry, Word From Our Sponser, Elementary, Criminal Minded) while going after lesser MC – truly, the essence of vintage street battle-rap. In fact, this album was also among the first in bringing crew feuds into the spotlight, KRS-One singling out the Queens rapper MC Shan of the Juice Crew for being a style-biter and “sucker MC” compared to talents from the other Boroughs of New York City. South Bronx and The Bridge Is Over are often name-dropped as seminal classics of 'diss rap', and hearing them even this far out of context, I can't help but lean back and proclaim, “Daaa-yuum!”

And there's more! KRS-One switching between Jamaican toasting and his Bronx flow, properly bringing the two styles together. The tragic fact this was the only material we'd hear from Scott La Rock, murdered later that year. The album's underground status cemented due to years of being out of print from label mismanagement. Me finally knowing where Method Man got that 'super sperm' line from. It's all here! Completist material indeed.

Falcon Reekon - Consecration

Werkstatt Recordings: 2016

This is ridiculous. Would it kill the Discogs community to be more thorough in its data-logging? I get that it's mind-numbing to keep track of EVERY. SINGLE. digital release, and there honestly should be a little quality control - Soundcloud demos and giveaways need not apply. But if the Discoggian community allows DJ tapes and exclusive white labels into the archives, surely items that have an actual price tag attached to them are worthy as well. A mere half-dozen souls may buy a $2 track, but that legitimizes Bandcamp releases far more than some of the rubbish I've come across in the utter recesses of CDr-Land.

What I'm getting at is, despite only two albums appearing in Falcon Reekon's Discoggian profile, his Bandcamp provides plenty more: an additional five albums, a single track release, plus a compilation of old material. Why hasn't anyone entered these as well? Is it because they're self-released, and not tied to an actual label like Werkstatt Recordings? That don't fly, 'cause I've seen oodles of 'self-released' entries throughout Discogs too, especially from the ambient camps. Is it because synthwave remains a rather niche interest, so young that dedicated chroniclers of the genre's releases are scarce? It sure ain't like a decade ago, when every micro-genre would have a three-dozen blogs sharing the same few singles at a time. Not that I've gone out of my way to discover otherwise, but I do wonder if I'm one of the few folks out there even giving labels like Werkstatt any attention at all. I did not ask for this burden, but if such is my fate, then so be it.

Falcon Reekon is... um, Falcon Reekon, from France. Of course Lord Discogs has no other information on him, although neither does his Bandcamp. His Soundcloud adds where the name comes from ('80s inspired, naturally), but no details regarding actual name and the like. Proper anonymous action. For a chap with nine albums under his belt, you'd think he'd (it is 'he', right?) be a little more up on the promotional game. What would I know about that though, the very antithesis of self-hype?

Consecration is Falcon Reekon's second album with Werkstatt, and is about as typical and classy a synthwave album as it gets. Not a bad thing if you're still vibing on the stuff, as I am, but if the likes of Perturbator haven't convinced you of the genre, there's little chance this album will either. A few 'outrun' styled tunes aside (Live Chase, Outrunners Wiz Attitude, Overnight), Consecration is also some of the most chill synthwave I've come across, without ever sliding into sappy synth-pop. It almost sounds like synthwave inspired by house and disco than anything strictly ripped from the '80s. A deeper vibe, if you will, suitable for late night cruises on the boulevard rather than tearing through neon-soaked roads. Why, I'd almost be willing to call it 'deep-wave', but don't let the Bandcamp Tagging Consortium know – tags are abused enough as it is.

Biosphere - Compilation 1991-2004

Biophon Records: 2012/2017

Now isn't this just a right dandy little item Geir Jenssen's given us. As Biosphere, he released few actual albums throughout his first fifteen years of music making, but each one was a bonafide classic of ambient and frigid techno, making fans squirm and itch for more material. There were collaborations with Pete Namlook (Fires Of Ork) and Higher Intelligence Agency, but if you fancied yourself a true Biosphere completist, you'd have to do some serious sleuthing and digging, many tracks exclusive to compilations littered among his discography. Some of these weren't too hard find – even I could find copies of Trance Europe Express 3 on my local store shelves – but chances are you'd have to come from the hinterlands of Norway to snag yourself a copy of Nova Norvegia – (Get) Into The Arctic Groove. To say nothing of the outright obscurity of a Denmark museum collection in Krydsfelt – Norpol. I imagine even the peer-to-peer juggernauts of old had trouble tracking that one down.

Well fuss no more, Biosphere Completists, for Geir has gathered all his wayward offspring between the years 1991 and 2004 into a tidy 2CD compilation, titled, um, Compilation 1991-2004 - doesn't beat around the lichen moss, does it? Of course, if you really want to fancy yourself a true-proper Biosphere Completist, you'll still hunt down all those CDs these tracks were sprung from. For sensible people though, this will suffice.

Although, having listened through this now, I wonder if Compilation: My First Fifteen Years has any appeal beyond only the most die-hard Biosphere disciples. There's no denying Mr. Jenssen's frigid oeuvre can leave some folks cold (hah!). Yet whether you prefer his bleep techno beginnings, desolate field recordings, or looping drone, few come away from his work without at least thinking, “Hm, that's interesting.” And this double-discer touches base on all these aspects, but if you were coming in here looking for brilliant exclusives that never made an album cut, you've come to the wrong place indeed.

There isn't much from his techno days, opener Hypnophone the lone cut with any sort of beat among these fifteen tracks. The Third Planet and The Seal & The Hydrophone (Geir has a fascination for hydrophones) do the bleep ambient thing that marked his second album. By four tracks in though, we're already in the year 1997, when the minimalist abstraction really started taking hold of the Biosphere muse. Knives In Hens and Superfluid features some of the most experimental samples and drones Geir's ever produced, tediously so. At least the gentle ambience of Bird Watching and Sun-Baked end CD1 on a pleasant note.

CD2 is generally more consistent, as Mr. Jenssen's figured out how to craft his abstraction sampling into compositions with direction and focus, despite sometimes taking forever getting there (such a lonely road in Vi Kan Tenka Digitalt, Vi Kan Tala Digitalt). If you can't mess with ultra-minimalism though, well, you probably haven't bothered with post-Millennium Biosphere anyway.

ACE TRACKS: May 2018

It's been a strange feeling, this past month of writing. More relaxed, not as much pressure to keep pressing on to an end goal. Like, there still is an end goal, in that there has to come a point where my infinity project comes to fruition (receiving another twenty albums in the mail this past week alone sure makes it difficult tho'). Yet if I'm not feeling the free-flow of creative juice, I'm perfectly fine taking a step back for a day, regather my thoughts, come at better, stronger, though not necessarily harder or faster. There's no denying a few efforts from the past five years could have been better if I'd given them a little more care.

Of course, another thing is this past month's been a rather distracting affair, all 'round. So many movies (damn you, Marvel!), so many sicknesses (had to take two sick days – I seldom even take one per year!), plus that looming, work-related uncertainty that just won't be settled anytime soon. Okay, within the month for sure, then I'll finally know just how gainfully employed I'll still be. If not though... well, I guess I'll have more time to write. Plus there's that Patreon thing too. Can't forget to plug that every chance I get – the service tells me it's in my best interest to do so, no matter how much of a whore you end up feeling.

On those cheering thoughts, here's the ACE TRACKS for the Month Of May, of the year Twenty-Eighteen!


Full track list here.

MISSING ALBUMS:
Various - 10 Years Of Drum&BassArena: Mixed By Andy C & Grooverider
Wu-Tang Clan - 8 Diagrams
Gravediggaz - 6 Feet Deep
Euphoria - 2 Days Away

Percentage Of Hip-Hop: 25%
Percentage Of Rock: 6%
Most “WTF?” Track: Anything Gravediggaz ...but in a good way!

So strange that 8 Diagrams isn't on Spotify. Like, I get that the album was released on a short-lived label, and it's current status is probably still in legal limbo, but surely RZA would have found a new home for it a decade after the fact. AND Gravediggaz too, for that matter. Is Gee Street just being tight in its licensing with that one?

So I did something I haven't done in a long time with these playlists: sequence the tracks into a proper mixtape or set. I do this not because of nostalgia or a need for creative outbursts, but because my old alphabetical stand-by resulted in an incredibly wack order of tunes. Seriously, it was just... painful, the transitions I was hearing, over and over and over. I've had some 'eclectic' playlists in the past, but man, nothing like what this was turning out as. You just can't go from Global Communication to Canibus to Ladytron. You just can't. Hopefully this arrangement makes listening through this more tolerable. Well, for me, anyway.

Yes - 90125

Atlantic/Rhino Records: 1983/2004

When I was young, I didn't know much, but I knew my Dad liked Yes. I also knew he played rock music in a rock band, and that Yes also played rock music in a rock band. Yet, in all the practice jams and rehearsals and sound checks, I never heard my Dad play Yes. With the logic befitting of a youngling who didn't know much, I suggested he should play some Yes in his rock band, to which my Dad gave a somewhat bemused smile, replying, “I couldn't play to their level.” This statement took me aback. To my young ears, songs like Owner Of A Lonely Heart, Hold On, and Changes didn't seem that much different than his covers of Loverboy and Steve Miller Band, and surely that's all the band Yes ever did.

Of course, I eventually learned just how expansive the whole Yes discography is, and why my old man felt songs like Heart Of Sunrise, Close To The Edge, or Gates Of Delirium weren't exactly bar-rock suitable (surely he's jammed to Wurm on occasion tho'!). Still, you can't blame a kid for thinking otherwise, Yes' hard pivot into arena-friendly rock anthems fitting them right in with the radio and MTV hits of the '80s, a far cry from their progressive '70s output. And it was all the work of one man, their new guitarist Trevor Rabin.

Truth is, 90125 wasn't supposed to be a Yes album, at least not in name, the band having gone their separate ways following Drama. Founder Chris Squire and drummer Alan White stuck together though, still enjoying their rhythmic mojo, but they needed someone as lead and guitarist, and happened upon Trevor's demos. Liking the cut of his musical jib, the two parties hooked up and even started recording some tunes as Cinema. A happenstance meeting with former Yes keyboardist Tony Kaye brought him into the fold, and feeling Trevor couldn't handle all the vocals while doing his thing on the ol' six stringer, Chris reached out to Jon Anderson for his thoughts. Jon liked what he heard, and after a marketing rep suggested they ditch the Cinema moniker, you've got a whole new Yes for a whole new decade (Trevor Horn helped produce).

Make no mistake though, Trevor Rabin's ear for rock anthems remains the dominate force in this album. Yeah, you can hear whenever contributions from Squire (those basslines!) and Anderson come in (oh man, does Jon's abstract lyrics ever clash with Trevor's simple prose – sounds great tho'!), but for radio-ready rock, there's still some exceptional songcraft going on in these tunes: key changes, time signature variants, wacky solos, and all that good stuff prog rockers are known for. It's just not key features anymore, little asides where these musicians get to show off for fun before returning to an impossibly catchy earworm for a powerful chorus. 90125 may be Yes' most 'obvious' album, but I'd take this over most hair metal of the decade any day.

MUX - 2005 Live-PA Demo

promo: 2005

I wonder how many of these exist out there. Like, even from my tiny, backwater home-town, I've come across a number of them. Hell, I technically made one, when a couple buddies and I borrowed our fathers' music gear and started jamming out some really, really, really amateurish Primus-inspired nonsense. We recorded our efforts to a few tapes, but fool ye' be should thou seek to purchase a demo of The Festering Rat-Heads. Point is, music demos are everywhere, made by many who had an early itch to produce something, anything, but go no further than that. Maybe they found a musical calling elsewhere, or other life commitments prevented them from following through. Whatever the case, it seems no matter the level of talent involved, only one out of thousands of demos blossom into an actual career with signed records distributed through a label, even if but a short one.

MUX though, I always felt he coulda' been a contender, making live acid techno at a time when the genre was pretty much a forgotten relic of the '90s. Yeah, the Stay Up Forever posse were still kicking out the jams with regularity (they never go to sleep, see), but they had that legacy momentum going for them. Ain't no where else on the globe peddling that stuff in the mid-'00s, much less the West Coast Of Canada. So you gotta' give it to MUX (Drew Smith to the Pacific Naval Patrol) for sticking to the sound he loved best: 4am bangin' acid techno.

Four tracks long, this live-PA outing picks up right where the London Acid Techno crew have remained for two decades. Okay, it's not pure TB-303 action in play, as authentic machines are limited and difficult to come by, but the essence and soul of acid remains. For folks starved for the stuff in a region completely devoid of it, MUX's stuff is the right stuff indeed. It's got the thumping beats, the looping vocals ripped from sci-fi movies (I'm not inconsistent, you are inconsistent, dammit), the tweaky acid builds, and... um, okay, that's about all there. It's acid freakin' techno, exactly what you'd expect, delivered as well as you could hope from someone not within the Stay Up Forever inner circle.

Though he probably could have sent some music to the London Acid Techno Crew for consideration, MUX recorded little else after this. He still keeps semi-active in the Vancouver scene though, a prominent promoter for the long-running, bi-annual live-PA showcase Sequential Circus, even occasionally breaking out his old gear for another live acid rinsing. Mostly though, Mr. Smith's found his true calling gallivanting across the Pacific shores in his own sail boat. I'm serious! Like, if there's ever a reason to not follow through on a career in techno, that's good enough for me. Maybe I can hire him sometime in the future for an expedition to Kerguelen Island, have an acid techno party on the loneliest place on the map.

Dr. Dre - 2001

Interscope Records: 1999

A Very Important record, this, accomplishing many things all at once (hay, guys, remember all those G-funk rappers!?), forming ripples in the world of hip-hop still in effect. For sure it brought Dr. Dre back to the forefront of rap discourse, a strange achievement when you reflect on what he'd accomplished as a producer throughout the '90s: popularizing G-funk, discovering Snoop Dogg, crafting some of the biggest hits Tupac and Blackstreet put out. Hip-hop is fickle though, eager to flock to the next big hype as established vets start piling on the years. Following the flop that was The Firm, with Southern rap making huge commercial inroads (never mind its quality, No Limit Records was a marketing juggernaut), and you can understand why folks figured a guy who made his name ten years prior would have been regarded as old-hat.

Then along came a white saviour, and suddenly everyone was talking about Dre again. Eminem must have done more than given the good Doctor a new protégé though, as Mr. Young hit the studio again for a new album of his own. Not that he needed to prove he could still drop rhymes as he did with The Chronic, but hey, when you want to emphatically put to rest whether you 'still got it', you go at it with all you got. And he sure done did that, folks still holding out against hope that he'll release a way-overdue follow-up to this album. Man, just let it go already. Dre's got headphones to sell, yo'.

Right, Dre's not much a lyricist, and the truth is 2001: The Nu Chronic doesn't do much to dispel that fact. When he's poppin' off about his past successes, reflecting on changes in the rap game, taking down his doubters (The Watcher, Still D.R.E., What's The Difference, Forgot About Dre), or even offering a heartfelt tribute to his dead brother in The Message, the Doctor easily holds his own among the plethora of guest spots. Half this album goes on about fucking women though, topics far more capably handled by smooth cats like Snoop Dogg and Nate Dogg (and outright douches like Kurupt). Anytime Dre goes on about “fucking bad bitches”, he almost sounds apologetic to his wife in doing so. Sorry, hun, but the boys need their strip club anthems.

Whatever your thoughts on lyrical content, no one denies that 2001: A Chronic Odyssey is all about the beats Dre and Mel-Man crafted here. No matter how tuned out I get hearing about 'guns, blunts, 40s, and bitches', each G-funk cut on here keeps me coming back for more, rhythms packing trunk-rattling punch with twitchy keyboards, plucky strings, and triumphant horns. And with so many of Dre's big rap friends on hand dropping rhymes (Snoop! Em'! X'! Dogg Pound! Devin! Roq! ... Hittman? Who that? And why's he all over this album?), 2001 comes off like a big ol' Westcoast gangsta' party that you're invited to. Yes, even you suburban white kids in middle-America.

Canibus - 2000 B.C. (Before Can-I-Bus)

Universal Music: 2000

For a very brief window, I was listening to every new hip-hop album that entered my little hinterlandian music shop. I didn't actually buy every new item, oh no; this one though, 2000 B.C. (Before Can-I-Bus). I didn't know who Canibus was, but he was dropping bars with an intensity that properly drew me into the artform: battle-rap. Dudes like Del and Deck, firing off fiery metaphors and similes with such complexity and ferocity, few could stand toe-to-toe in the arena. And now here's a guy who's entire deal is doing such a thing, a full album's worth of such bars (and some other nonsense).

Jamaican born, commanding the microphone must have been in Mr. Germaine Williams' blood from the start, making a name for himself throughout the underground freestyle circuit in New York City. It got him noticed by some Very Important Persons in the hip-hop community, including LL Cool J and Wyclef Jean, the latter even producing Canibus' debut album. That... didn't turn out as his fans expected, Wyclef trying to mould Canibus into a commercial star. The album sold well enough, mind you, but heads wanted the real battling 'Bus. Thus for his follow-up 2000 B.C., Canibus throws down as hard as everyone hoped he would.

The album opens with a heavy boom-bap beat while various former bars are stitched together, eventually erupting with a triumphant fanfare as Canibus declares it's The C-Quel. And if that doesn't get you fired up, then the titular cut damn sure well, all apocalyptic choirs as dude doesn't hold back on proclaiming his lyrical greatness (while throwing a couple barbs at Wyclef in the process). The rest of the album pretty much plays out like that, Canibus coming in with a solid Eastcoast beat, going off on how great he is in a myriad of creative ways. Sometimes he brings in other famed lyricists like Rakim, Killah Priest, Rass Kass, and Kurupt, other times he goes off for an unprecedented one-hundred bars (100 Bars). Gander at one of my favourite verses from Doomsday News, for obvious reasons: “If I had half as many bars in gold as I had in lyrics when I flowed; I'd be the richest man on the globe; Niggas wanna know is Canibus gold? That's a stupid-ass question motherfucker, is Canada cold? 'Bout a thousand degrees lower than liquid nitro is.”

I can't say it's all gold, though. Life Liquid has Canibus spitting over-the-top ultra-violence and homophobia to show how 'street hard' he is (Watch Who U Beef Wit's a far better grimdark street cut – message!). A few beef jabs are fine, but Canibus does overplay it with Die Slow and Phuk U. Odd having Pharoahe Monch featuring solo on a pure freestyle in Horsemen. And no matter how creative he does get, hearing Canibus constantly telling you how awesome he is does wear thin by album's end. Beyond those quibbles though, 2000 B.C.'s a dope record for folks who dig rap's true lyrical potential.

808 State - 88:98 (2018 Update)

Universal Records: 1998

(Click here to bang your head against an impenetrable wall of text)

I've severely lagged in my 808 State gathering. Hell, it's almost shameful it took me until just last year to snag me a copy of at least one proper LP from the Manchester group, any LP. ex:el is a decent jumping on point, I suppose, but I'm certain most acid heads declare their first couple of records - Newbuild and Ninety - the only true 808 State albums you're supposed to have, even if you're not an 808 State fan. “But wait!”, say some, “Don't you dare dismiss their post-ex:el material either, Gorgeous and Don Solaris just as worthy of discussion as any of the band's seminal '80s work.”

Yeah, those too, though considering I've seen Gorgeous in the used-shops on occasion, I do have some suspicions of that one's overall quality. Strikes me as the sort of record that I would have stumbled upon back in my exploratory years, picked up to hear why 808 State were held in such high regard, and came away entertained but unimpressed. But hey, until I actually hear Gorgeous in full, I can't make that claim.

For now, all I have to go on is the fact only three of that album's tracks made the cut on this retrospective, whereas ex:el earned a whopping five out of thirteen potential slots. Not to mention none of the songs got a spiffy '98 update like Pacific and Cubik did. No, wait, this is bad logic on my part! Newbuild got jack-shite representation with 88:98, which follows that it's a completely rubbish outing. Well, we must concede it's the least commercially viable for a compilation such as this, but that's probably why so many True Heads adore that acid excursion compared to what came after. Only way you'd hear Flow Coma on the radio is via pirate options.

I cannot deny having 88:98 makes getting the band's post ex:el material a rather low priority. Yeah, you can argue this compilation also makes having ex:el redundant (or the other way around), but c'mon, tracks like Lift and In Yer Face are worth having as many times as possible! If this is meant to be a gathering of their best material though, then I've already heard all the highlights from Gorgeous and Don Solaris, everything else on those albums 'just for the fans' options. Then again, if I went by that logic, then I'd have assumed I wouldn't need anymore tunes off of ex:el, as there's no possible way the five on 88:98 are the peak. Then I heard ex:el, and realized they could have thrown even more on here than what's offered.

There, that should be enough circular rambling to sate anyone. As should be painfully apparent by now, I really have nothing else to add or update with 88:98. It's still a handy intro to 808 State, but far from a complete story. Besides, there's plenty of streaming options for that now anyway. Wow, the 'retrospective CD' market truly is dead, inn'it?