Earth Nation - Terra Incognita

Eye Q Records: 1995

No one disputes Sven Väth was the Head of Eye Q and Harthouse, the face and brains, if you will. Several producers were easily the Muscle, acts that helped build the label into one of the seminal powerhouses of techno and trance coming out of Germany (Oliver Lieb, Hardfloor, Alter Ego, Resistance D, Vernon, Energy 52). One man, however, was unquestionably the Soul, always lurking in the studio away from fame and glory. Who's influence not only helped refine Sven's approach to dance music, but left an undeniable, lasting imprint on how we remember those Eye Q and Harthouse records to this day: Ralf Hildenbeutel. Not only was he behind some of their most successful singles (L'Esperanza, Superstring, My Name Is Barbarella, Desire, Firedance), but his songcraft gave many tracks a charming, retro-futuristic stylee we so often associate with early trance. He never got as much due as he deserved, but its difficult thinking of Eye Q or Harthouse without thinking of Ralf.

He had many projects with both labels, but one seems to have slipped from general discourse compared to his other works: Earth Nation. I suppose part of it has to do with the rather generic name, not exactly the sexiest option when surrounded by stuff like Progressive Attack, Odyssee Of Noise, Icon, Summerbreeze, and Cygnus X. His partnership with guitarist Marcus Deml yielded a few albums though, this here Terra Incognita their second effort. It's also regarded as one of classic trance's last great LPs before the tsunami of Oakenfold changed everything.

Even here, it's clear Ralf and Marcus knew the trends were shifting, Terra Incognita almost devoid of the blistering Frankfurt pace of old. The fastest track on here, The Ikarus Syndrome, features a rhythm that's right out of the Underworld Banger playbook, all the while opening with a lengthy, sweeping, operatic build that could give Cream punters goosebumps. Later in the album, Green Sky Is Red has a nicely brisk pace of its own, though has more in common with goa trance of the mid-'90s than anything Germanic. Elsewhere, tracks Elucidate and The Artificial Dream get more of a proggy groove going, the former with a warm-up set vibe, the latter sounding not out of place in a peak-hour Sasha & Diggers set of the time. Really, the only 'pure' trance cut on Terra Incognita is the opener Way In, a loopy hypnotic number that has as much to do with Frankfurt techno as anything else.

Throw in a few ambient interludes, a requisite 'experimental' track in Transfiguration (breakbeats in goa!), a couple wind-down downtempo tracks towards the end, and you've a remarkably solid trance album for the year 1995, hardly dated at all. Why does this go so overlooked, then? It came out towards the end of Eye Q's run? The 'Earth Nation' handle just too easily bypassed? Not appearing on enough Very Important DJ mixes? Who knows anymore, but if you crave vintage trance, there's no reason for you to ignore this.

Various - Techno Explosion (The Other Stuff)

Jumpin' & Pumpin': 1997

Fifty techno 'giants' has to be among the most ridiculous claims I've seen in the copy of a compilation. What does that even mean? Giant hits? Stakker Humanoid certainly charted, but beyond the FSOL stuff, I don't recognize a single thing. No, check that, there is one song that did significant chart action long ago, Eleanor Rigby. It's practically the same tune too, with the string section and everything, only this time, 'Lonely People' (Chris & Tim Laws) add some generic rave beats and piano fills. Fortunately, that's the extent of trendwhoring 'updates', but nowhere near the end of bandwagon jumping 'techno' cuts.

Though this was released in '97, Techno Explosion doesn't reach much beyond '93, almost entirely sticking to the old school rave era. One track dips a toe slightly beyond that, '95's Burnin' Love from Dutch happy hardcore act Critical Mass, and sounding ridiculously out of place among all the hoover anthems and sampled Amen breaks. What, did Jumpin' & Pumpin' not have enough material culled from EarthBeat, Elicit, and Debut, needing to call in a favour from ID&T to hit that fifty mark?

So there's a lot of rave riffs, proto-jungle, piano anthems and the like throughout Techno Explosion, which probably sounds like heaven if you can't get enough of that era of music. Trust me though, you'll grow tired of it all after four discs worth of non-hits. A huge chunk consist of stitched-together loops of well-worn styles and tropes, few raising above the standard stock of the time. Whenever I heard a cut that sounded a little more polished and intuitive, that there was an musician behind the console and not some hasty hack job, turned out it was a track Dougans and Cobain had a hand in. Man, these guys really were far too good for this shit, weren't they?

Right, it's not all forgotten unknowns rounding out three-fourths of Techno Explosion. The Urban Shakedown posse (Aphrodite, Claudio Giussani) join up with Andy Chatterley for the one-off Prodigy knock-off Feel That Feelin' as T-Boom! Steve Mac, who had a proper 'giant' hit in Nomad's Devotion, appears with a multitude of aliases and collaborations (Clockhouse Hours, Coma Kid, Suzy Shoes, Smak, Bubbles). Jamie Odell, who'd go onto some minor fame in jazzy, downtempo d'n'b as Jimpster, earns his early jungle strips as Flag. Darren Pearce would have a successful run with the Reactivate series (they of the cartoon sea-critter covers), but can't escape bog-standard rave 'ardcore here. There's a DJ Freshtrax with a few scattered contributions, though you might know him as Jon The Dentist these days.

There's not much else to mention. Techno Explosion is little more than a label expunging its back-catalogue in hopes of generating a couple extra bones, with as cheap a presentation as possible (not even an inlay booklet provided). It's like getting a torrent that promises hundreds of classic rave tracks, then discovering most of it is just the same nonsense slightly rearranged over and over and over.

Various - Techno Explosion (The FSOL Stuff)

Jumpin' & Pumpin': 1997

This is a compilation consisting of four CDs, with fifty tracks spread out across them. I bought this for exactly one track, Q by Mental Cube. It's a surprisingly difficult tune to procure on a physical medium these day. In fact, the original version that appears on here was its last official release, disc or digital. It didn't even get represented on FSOL's recent, early-alias retrospective By Any Other Name. Is Jumpin' & Pumpin' stingy with their rights to their pre-Virgin tunes or something?

Ah, I'll take what I can get. Not that Q is some ultra-rare track, having done the rounds on a few compilations back when it was new. Finding decent prices for CDs like EarthBeat, Breaks, Bass & Bleeps, and Techno Dance Party II is strangely difficult though, so upon spotting Techno Explosion for about half-price, for sure I'll bite. I mean, it's got Q on it, possible one of the greatest bleep-E' tunes ever crafted! Never fails giving me the knackered feels, floating on a good gurn when those strings and singing bleeps get to work.

But an even niftier selling point was the inclusion of so much more old FSOL material. Yage is here! Indo Tribe is here! Humanoid is here! Hell, even some of their most obscure alter egos are here. I guess a whole bunch of other tunes from the Jumpin' & Pumpin' library is a nice bonus, but like Hell I'm gonna' spend four reviews detailing all of it. So, despite the FSOL stuff getting spread out across all four discs, I'll just consolidate that material in this review, and save the rest for a second review. Trust me, it'll only take one to get through.

So what does Techno Explosion offer for pre-Lifeforms tunes? You get a couple tracks that appeared on Accelerator in Pulse State and Innate (aka: 1 In 8). There's also a track called Hard Head, a funky sample-breaks thing that Lord Discogs claims had never been released before appearing on here. Better get on it, completists.

Aside from Q, we also get the Mental Cube dreamy house cut So This Is Love. Hearing Stakker Humanoid again is always fun, a little more bleep action comes care of Indo Tribe's In The Mind Of A Child and I've Become What You Were, and the cuts from Art Science Technology (A.S.T. and Esus Flow) sound like the duo were trying their hand at the rock-influenced Madchester sound. Yage goes experimental tribal (Fuzzy Logic) and ravey house (Livin' For The Love). And, oh dear, are FSOL attempting an 'ardcore track with Space Virus as Smart Systems? Stay in your lane, lads.

While a few from this era undoubtedly retain classic status, they are all quite dated too, nowhere near the amazing production quality of even Accelerator material. Still, compared to what else Jumpin' & Pumpin' was churning out at the time, it's clear the duo was light years beyond their contemporaries even within this limited range of old school techno.

Lingua Lustra - Spaces

Spiritech: 2016

I could have reviewed this a couple months ago, when going through the previous alphabetical backlog. Spaces initially found itself in my library as a download earlier this year, perhaps as a short-term free giveaway from Lingua Lustra's Bandcamp. He has quite a few of those available, though mostly all singles and EPs, not full-length albums. Spaces falls into the latter camp, but there's no way I paid money just for a download. I've forever refused buying digital if a physical option is available. *Always Sunny In Philadelphia theme starts playing*...

No, wait, there's a logical reason for having a CD of this! See, Spaces comes care of Spiritech, a short-lived label helmed by Alireza Zaifnejad (BlueBliss) and Albert Borkent; aka: Lingua Lustra. Mostly dealing with digital, Spiritech started dabbling in CD options this past year, including a 4CD deal of their four latest albums. Spaces was among those, and I thought to myself, “Well, I already have the digital version, I may as well include it in my standard backlog in anticipation of getting the CD.” And while I did listen to this in that batch, I didn't want to 'cheat' reviewing it without first having the physical copy on hand (why do I make things needlessly convoluted!?). For some reason though, the CD order took a long time arriving, over two-months – wasn't Spiritech situation in Saskatchewan? I know we make our 'hicksville' jokes about the province here on the West Coast, but seriously? I can only assume these CDs came from Mr. Borkent's own stash in Europe, what with the label folding and all (more on that later).

Naturally, I'm going on and on (beyond the halcyon) about pointless info because I'm left with Yet Another Ambient Album With Little To Detail. Spaces contains only three tracks, each nearly doubling the length of the previous one. Opener Ruin runs about seven minutes, follow-up Eden hovers around twelve and a half, while final cut Source stretches out to the twenty-six mark. That's actually an interesting concept worth exploring, if you're into technical aspects of music compositions – studies in time signatures, hidden messages in song durations, and the like. It's all a little wanky to my sensibilities, but props to those who dedicate their skills to it. It's like a painter who uses difficult techniques creating a portrait that anyone with rudimentary ability could accomplish. Or maybe not, I dunno' - my knowledge of painting is pathetic. Oh, and I kinda' doubt the whole 'escalating track duration' thing was intentional on Lingua Lustra's part, since these pieces aren't perfectly trimmed to accommodate the concept. Just a curious coincidence.

And the music itself? Ruin is ultra-minimalist with electromagnetic drone, soft pulses, and emergent field recordings. Eden does the bright, layered synth pad drone thing. Source is practically devoid of sound, subtle bleepy electronics, impossibly distant pads, and gentle washes of white noise static leaving plenty of open spaces for a wandering mind. Fits the album theme, that's for sure.

Pet Shop Boys - Please

Parlaphone: 1986/2009

So I've started a Pet Shop Boys collection. Okay, I technically already did years ago, when I picked up Disco 2 from a used shop, but I don't consider that part of their album canon, and neither should you. Aside from that, which ones do I start with? I'm sure every discerning PSB fan tells you that their first five albums are all most haves, even if you're not a fan of the Pet Shop Boys. Fair enough, though my alphabetical stipulation will create a screwy chronology of their work if I buy them all at once. Nay, I'll get them incrementally, spacing things out, going on this journey of discovery as everyone else did when they were among the UK's hottest synth-pop acts ever. Yeah, much more fun this way.

Thus here we are with Please, an album so-titled because Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe thought it funny customers would be forced into a little politeness when asking for the record. They'd made a bunch of track a couple years prior to this, working with famed Hi-NRG producer Bobby O, and while they yielded some club success (Mr. Orlando was unstoppable in the '80s), they didn't reach much attention beyond that. Undaunted, Neil and Chris parted ways with Bobby, found another producer in Stephen Hague, re-recorded those initial efforts, and in short order made lots of money. Holy cow, what a turnaround!

Please was an undeniable, inescapable hit if all that chart action is anything to go by (as high as number three in Canada, and just as successful in their native UK), but it was the lead single of West End Girls that propelled it to such highs. Beyond being an irresistible slice of '80s synth-pop, it vividly paints a portrait of life on the seedier side of inner city existence, an alluring invite to walk on the wrong side of town where the upper-crust fear to tread. In fact, much of Please plays out like that, Neil's lyrics often portraying folks from disparate classes intermingling with each other as they figure out how to exist in the hyper-consumerist '80s. Much has been written of the 'irony' in such songs, celebrations of 'capitalism' by those who totally suck at it, but even if taken at sincere, face-value, they're remarkably effective at appealing to all working classes. Who wouldn't jump at the chance to act out the narrator in Opportunities (Gotta' Get That Chedda')?

What I want to know is, how has Please not been adapted into a screenplay or musical? Intended or not, the narrative is right there, a failing suburbanite looking to escape what he perceives as a falsely-cheery wasteland (Surburbia) into something a little more thrilling (Two Divided By Zero, West End Girls, Tonight Is Forever, Violence) and unpredictable (Opportunities, Why Don't We Live Together?). The music is already exuberant enough for Broadway, and Pet Shop Boys have shown plenty of savvy in stage theatrics. Seems like a sure-win to me.

Mick Chillage - Paths

Databloem: 2016

I spent a huge chunk of my last Mick Chillage review endlessly going on about music formats, nearly rendering (M)odes a hilarious/frustrating non-review. Not this time though. I'm giving Paths all the musical critical hyper-practical attention it deserves. But first, some background on Databloem!

I've name-dropped the label in the past, on account artists I've covered before have released material through them. Finally digging through their catalogue proper-like, I didn't realize how wide a net Databloem casts. They've put out albums from students of '80s old-school ambient (Oöphoi! Tau Ceti! Steve Stoll! Mathias Grassow!) to students of '90s school ambient (Chillage! Norris as Nacht Plank! Segue! Lingua Lustra!), and a whole lot more I don't recognize in the slightest (I think sgnl_fltr appeared on an Ultimae compilation one time). They aren't a large label by any stretch – fifteen years in business, with a half-dozen releases per – but as they came upon that anniversary, Databloem felt a swagger-itch in need of scratching. Their solution was rounding up some artists who'd released prior music on their print, and have them craft whole new albums in celebration. Only, a regular LP just wouldn't do, oh no. To celebrate fifteen years, Databloem shot for nothing less than the double-LP experience for each artist. I... can't say I've ever seen that happen before, so points for unique marketing.

Of course, dealing with ambient producers here, knocking out a couple fifty-plus minute compositions to fill that running length ain't no th'ang. And while Mick Chillage doesn't typically go to those runtimes in his works, he does indulge himself to that degree in the fifty minute long Three Years. Beyond being something of a nod to the '80s school of ambient though, I'm struggling to justify such a length. The opening section has flowing pad synths, and under normal circumstances, tidily wraps up around the thirteen minute mark, a suitable length for this sort of track. But a single, low drone carries on, and we're eventually introduced to spacier, minimalist doodling with piano touches – rather '90s style. That carries on for another twelve or so minutes, then things go brighter with drawn-out strings (I'm hesitant to drop the 'modern classical' tag on it). There's a return to prior elements for the lengthy finish, but man does Three Years ever take its time getting there. And if you feel I've spent too much word-count detailing a single track out of twelve, it's kinda' hard ignoring such a behemoth of a composition.

Three Years essentially eats up the bulk of CD2, with a couple 'shorter' ambient pieces that tread close to the realms of New Age ambient rounding it out (Hearts Of Space, yo'). If you have a craving for Chillage beats though, CD1 should get your fix in, some even getting downright peppy and funky with it (Canis Majoris). It isn't anything we haven't heard from Mick before, but chap's got a solid groove going such that he doesn't need convoluted wheels at this point.

Memex - Memory Index

Carpe Sonum Records: 2016

This is, what, the tenth collaborative project Lee Norris has partaken? Dude's a machine as of late, sucking all nearby producers into his studio. Or Skype sessions. Or whatever musicians use to share ideas and tracks over the interwebs these days. I kinda' hope they still do in-studio sessions though, the synergy between two creative people interlocking their mental and physical beings into a twisting ballet of- and there it is. I almost went five years on this blog without succumbing to a pseudo slash-fic joke.

Anyhow, we all know Mr. Norris' story, so let's focus a bit on the other half of this Memex partnership, one Darren McClure. He's been making music for a little over a decade now, and if his Discogian info is accurate, has seldom released material on a label twice, Impulive Habitat getting the honor. Of his thirteen officially listed albums (including many other collaborations), he has music with The Land Of, Symbolic Interaction, Unknown Tone Records, Dragon's Eye Recordings, Nova Fund Recordings, [Not On Label], and Inner Ocean Records. You may remember that last one as the Calgary print I snatched up a couple CDs from, among them a Porya Hatami LP. He likely hooked up with Mr. McClure through that association (both residing in Japan probably helped), as the two put out a collaborative album called In-Between Spaces on Lee's label ...txt. Ah-HAH, and thus we get our link to Norris! From which the two worked together... under a unique alias? And released the result on Carpe Sonum Records?? Huh, maybe Darren wanted to keep that 'one release for one label' thing going.

As for the music Mr. McClure makes, it's mostly of the soft drone and field recordings sort, at least of the clutch of samples I listened to. He doesn't have much on Spotify, making a splurge there difficult – plenty on Bandcamp though, but Bandcamp binging isn't terribly convenient. Still, having taken in enough for a reasonable overview of his sound, I have to say I'm surprised by how little I hear of it in this Memex project.

For sure it crops up here and there among the seven tracks that make up Memory Index. Swing Strings has flowing water sounds and mechanical drones, Just Wake Up utilizes ghostly passages like being lost in a robot park, In Advance has twittering birds and crunchy static, and Steps In The Way bubbles with shoegazey fuzz. Short ambient piece Disengage is about the only track where it feels like McClure's style dominates though. Mostly, this album is led by Norris' ambient techno beatcraft and bleepy melodica, ofttimes coming off rather retro in a HIA sort of way.

Which is fine where I'm concerned – can never get enough of that vintage 'bleep ambient' action. I just figured I'd hear more of Mr. McClure's aesthetic in this effort. Or is he also down with the acid-chill sound, but with little opportunity to explore it before? Freedom to indulge rhythms at last!

Gorillaz - Humanz (Proper Review)

Parlaphone: 2017

I wonder what comes first when Albarn and Hewlett reconvene for another Gorillaz saga: the music, or the concept. Like, I imagine ol' Damon would have a few demos kicking around, and ol' Jamie would have a few sketches laying about, but what's the process coming up with all the intriguing backstory for their multi-media creation. I mentioned in the Kayfabe Review of Humanz that Russel Hobbs, the Gorillaz drummer with a myriad of urban American influences and North Korean incarceration, was a dominating force in how the album turned out, but was that just the story Albarn and Hewlett concocted after the fact, or did they adapt the music to serve the narrative?

Another example: there's not much of 2-D/Albarn's singing voice on Humanz. That's because the Gorillaz cartoon front-man was lost on a Mexican beach, subsisting on rotting whale meat and coarse sand (it gets everywhere). Luckily, he eventually found his way back to the studio to offer his vocal talents, but in his absence, guest vocalists Murdoc and Russel rounded up (re: Albarn connected with) took over most of the singing duties. Was 2-D's story planned this way, or made up on the fly when Damon realized his voice was taking more of a backseat on Humanz. It's a fascinating conundrum, the Gorillaz process.

Much has been said about the musical drift from 'mutant pop' of older Gorillaz albums, instead going for more of a funk, house, and soul fusion. Can't deny it was a little off-putting for yours truly, having repeatedly consumed their previous works rather voraciously in anticipation of this one. Then again, when I first heard Plastic Beach, I was initially put off by it as well, sounding very little like Demon Days. And even Demon Days I put off for years, figuring it couldn't possibly match the dubby, erratic fun of the debut album. Yet I've replayed all those albums multiple times now, as I'm sure I will with Humanz. Albarn never gives us the same thing twice with Gorillaz, and while that can be frustrating for those hoping for retreads of Clint Eastwood or DARE or On Melancholy Hill, they clearly aren't paying attention to the project's expectation-dashing intentions.

Fortunately, as I already have an affinity for house beats, and can dig the funk and soul if its got that Motown or Chicago vibe going, I warmed to Humanz quite quickly. Saturnz Barz is just as catchy as any of the band's previous dub-fusion tracks of years past, it's nice hearing Jamie Principle in the slinky electro of Sex Murder Party, and who can resist the uplifting swing of Peven Everett's vocals in house jam Strobelite? Plus ending the album with pure jubilation collaboration of We Got The Power (Jarre! Jehnny! A Gallagher!!), whoo! Ending it with such a musical cliff-hanger does leave one expecting though, but fortunately there's a 2CD version with bonus tracks that carry the party on a little longer. Of course I sprung for it!

Gorillaz - Humanz (Kayfabe Review)

Parlaphone: 2017

This is a band that always flies too close the sun with each release, co-existing just long enough to make great music, then utterly flame out as tensions, strife, demons (figurative and literal), distractions, and ego get in the way. True, it's almost always the fault of Murdoc Niccals, but then again there wouldn't be Gorillaz without his unholy deals vision – I mean, have you ever seen 2-D, Russel, or Noodles put out a proper solo album of their own? They may hate and resent his guts, but they cannot deny Murdoc provides them opportunities too.

But in this case, it seemed that Plastic Beach truly was destined to be their final work. Details are 'sketchy' over what happened at Point Nemo (because, haha, they're literally sketched in the Rhinestone Eyes video, hahaha!), but we finally do know where everyone disappeared to after the Boogieman's assault on the trash island, each involved on their own personal journeys of introspection, self-reflection, emancipation, and incarceration. This last one is most important, for we probably wouldn't have this Gorillaz album without it.

Murdoc could outrun pirates, gun-runners, and devils no problem, but one entity he could never escape is the record label, specifically EMI. They somehow tracked him down after his escape from Point Nemo, throwing him into a dungeon underneath Abbey Road studio, offering freedom on the condition he get back to making another contractually obligated Gorillaz album. That left him a pickle though, as all his former bandmates were missing elsewhere. Fortunately, resourceful sod that he is, Murdoc kidnapped aggressively invited a number of musicians to help make the album until he could find the other Gorillaz members (cyborg option outlawed in the UK?).

By chance, one of these musicians was guitarist Jeff Wootton, whom was letting a returning Russel crash on his couch. Seems Mr. Hobs had quite the experience after swimming all the way to Point Nemo, being mistaken not only for a whale, but also a North Korean kaiju, such that the isolationist nation captured him and put him on display. The experience helped him lose almost all the his mutated weight however, and upon being released and returning to London, heard word Murdoc was in the process of crafting another Gorillaz record. Mr. Hobs immediately joined him in studio to write and record for the album.

Humanz is thus filled with a fair bit of American-inspired funk, house, and soul. For sure there's other elements at work too, but for the most part it seems Russel's influence gave us the final result. About time, as he hasn't had much chance to share his muse throughout the Gorillaz discography since the first record. His time spent in a dictatorial country also apparently gave him a unique perspective in what sort of theme to approach the album with. For instance, what if Western society was also overrun by power-hungry lunatics at the highest levels of government, all the while allowing our culture to crumble around us. No way that could happen here though! Haha, ha.

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.