Ott - Fairchildren

Ottsonic Music: 2015

Ott (no relation to NHL player Steve Ott) reminds me of that super-dependable rock band that can always churn out quality music that tickles my earholes just right, but for whatever reason never inspires me to dig deeper and further, much less wax the hyperbolic purple as I dance to his architecture. What rock bands, you ask? Oh, geez, put me on the spot, why don't you? Like, I kinda' wanna' say Coldplay, the most traditional of all milquetoast name-drops, but there's better options. Maybe The Strokes, or The Killers. Yeah, let's go with that: Ott is The Killers of psy-dub.

I liked Skylon a great deal, still have it in the regular rotation. and when Ott reissued his discography on his own print, you bet I snagged up a copy of his debut Blumenkraft. For some reason though, I was only mildly interested in hearing a follow-up. Maybe I was feeling psy-dub burn-out at the time, coming across too many artists that were only emulating the style Ott and Shpongle had popularized. I needed a little absence from it, and boy-howdy did Ultimae and Altar provide a good excuse to do so. Ott also appeared in need of a little diversification in his songcraft, but when I heard he chose to go the road of dubstep, I promptly 'NOPE'd on Mir, and didn't look back. Which was stupid, of course, but you cannot begin to appreciate just how over-saturated dubstep had become in the year 2011, especially in my hub of the world. Just... brutal...

But time has passed, as has the dubstep fad, and when I heard his fourth album Fairchildren being hailed as more a return to the tasty sonic soup that made his first two records such standouts, I had no problem diving back into the Ott fold. Erm, and it seems he's found himself a new toy to tinker with in glitch hop. I don't mind the stuff, but God can it ever grate when a producer overdoes it with the random sample wankery, which Ott succumbs to in Harwell Dekatron. So much directionless wibble – I need my wibble to have some momentum, y'know (Eat Static does the wibble good).

That's just one track of eight though, and aside from brief dabbling in Ship Is Not A Child, things don't go that wonk anywhere else on Fairchildren. Instead, we get bouncy psy-dub rhythms, cavernous dub echoes, vocals and instruments played, plucked, and plundered from lands far and wide, with just enough fun, wibbly, trippy effects keeping things cruising the psychedelic avenue to the dawn's morning light. Or through the afternoon heat on the beach. I've only seen Ott live in the latter setting.

And yet, I actually find myself just as dumbfounded in talking this music up in any specific detail. It's an Ott album, and if you know your Ott music, you know exactly what what you're gonna' hear. Won't deny it's that consistency I slapped my hard-earned bones down for though.

John Beltran - Everything At Once

Delsin: 2016

John Beltran should be a more important person in the world of techno. For sure he's highly regarded and respected, a two-decade veteran of the Detroit scene that's danced with the Belgian dudes just as often. He even scored a licensing hit in Collage Of Dreams - not many Detroit producers can claim that. And whenever a new album from Mr. Beltran drops, it always earns plenty of props, kudos, and love from the techno community. For whatever reason though, he's never quite broken through the ceiling that separates the Darn Good producers from the Legendary Name-Droppers. I can only assume his frequent flirtations with the ambient techno camps isolates him from the True-Pure Detroit leagues – Motor City don't take kindly to those who pall about with them softy Belgian boys, I reckon. Pft, as if that ever stopped Juan Atkins' status after releasing material on R & S Records.

Early seminal works aside, two decades of music is daunting to dive into for the Beltran newbie, few albums sounding quite like what came before. How nice of him, then, that for his tenth outing, John went with the ol' 'career retrospective' take, Everything At Once intended as a reflection of all that he's done. Can't think of a better excuse for a 'jumping-on point' than that!

And absolutely does Beltran deliver a smorgasbord of his various musical inclinations. There's ambient! There's techno! There's ambient with techno! There's twee acoustic glitch (She Dwells In Beauty)! There's dreamy indie loop-jazz (Dream Lover!)! (!!) There's Kraftwerk homage (Tanzmuzik)! There's... um, drone-tone...? Whatever Gentle Boxes is.

So there's eclecticism on Everything At Once, and at seventeen tracks, can get a tad overlong to sit through. While I'll always champion musical diversity, there needs to be some uniting theme tying it all together for each piece to properly settle into my brain-matter. Otherwise, bloopy jazz-shuffle tracks like White Rainbows get lost among the fuzzy ambient drone of Nice Sun and mellow Aphex nods like A New Room.

It also doesn't help matters when many of the lengthier tracks are front-loaded in this album, second-cut Faux giving us over seven minutes of soft clippity-clop breaks with acoustic strums and warped, harmonizing pads. That's followed upon by the titular cut doing a jazzy groove with haunting soul singing (paging Dr. Burial, if you may), while Sine M gets back to that vintage, chill Detroit techno, and Lift works the electro-jazz 'bells-n-bleep' businesses. Bookend this opening act with two short ambient pieces, and you'd be forgiven for thinking Everything At Once nicely wraps up just a shade shorter than many breezy albums do these days.

Not that there's isn't nice music in the remaining two-thirds, but they don't imprint quite the same, tracks seemingly more about Beltran indulging himself. Which is fine, ol' John more than capable of crafting engaging pieces even at his most left-of-field tendencies. It just leaves the back-end of Everything At Once a tad wanting, 'tis all.

Porya Hatami And Lee Anthony Norris - Every Day Feels Like A New Drug

Unknown Tone Records/...txt: 2013/2014

Another in Lee Norris' semi-regular series of 'Albums I Made A Number Of Years Ago, And Are Giving Away As Limited Free Bandcamp Downloads To Fans Following My Music, Because You Guys Rock'. It's a nice series, though I can't imagine it being terribly profitable. Then again, given the limited runs of the original CDs, it's not like there's much money left on the table now. Unless you're one of those shysters in the second-hand market, selling music at over-inflated prices because you know there's enough easy marks with collector's cash to make that investment worth the while. How nice of Mr. Norris to bypass all that for his fans who just wanted to hear the music on a streaming service. Still, I do wonder what Porya Hatami's say in all this is? Like, I can only assume he's fine about it, but what if he was hoping to squeeze a couple extra dimes out of a purchasable Bandcamp download from this album? The margin of profit in the ambient scene isn't terribly high to begin with – gotta' get all you can get while the getting's good, amirite?

Every Day Feels Like A New Drug was Misters Norris and Hatami's first pairing, initially coming out on Unknown Tone Records. Yes, it's Yet Another Ambient Label, though I don't recognize it, nor many names there. *sigh* And of course, they have some tasty-looking items too, much to the chagrin of my bank account. At least they're based out of Tulsa, Oklahoma, so shipping shouldn't be that expensive. I hope...

So obviously this album sold out, but given the buzz generated by their other collaboration, The Longing Daylight on Carpe Sonum Records, Every Day Feels Like a New Drug saw a re-issue on Lee's own ...txt print. That CD's likely all sold out now too, hence the limited digital giveaway on Norris' part. Or maybe not, the Hatami-Norris brand of ambient perhaps just a tad too deep on the Mellow Spectrum for all casual costumers of their music to consume. I mean, I sure wasn't in a hurry to hear more of it, only jumping on this album because Norris offered it up for free. I like their stuff, but it didn't exactly leap out from the glut of ambient works I've buried myself in either. Short album lengths don't help either.

Comparing the two albums, I find The Longing Daylight has a little more personality going for it, in that the unique approaches to ambient Norris and Hatami offer come through clearer. Here, I get the sense neither artist really wanted to outshine or subvert the other, so it all mushes together into a similar tone throughout. Soft pads, dusty background textures, glitchy reverb washes, gentle pianos, and bubbling field recordings. And The Birds Flew In A Different Direction sparks my Adham Shaikh memory membranes, but nothing else grabs my attention the way their other works have. Ambient music in its truest form, I guess.

Andrew Heath - Europa

Disco Gecko: 2016

Y'know, I do like Andrew Heath's vibe, but even four albums worth of his minimalist ambient feels a bit overkill for my music collection. Just how many times can I take hearing his sparse piano tones, treated field recordings, and ephemeral synth harmonics before it all it starts blending into the same sonic soup. It's not really a style of songcraft that lends itself to radical experimentation. While there are different ideas and settings he can approach his compositions from, his basic texture hasn't changed that much in the four years he's released material on Banco de Gaia's label. Perhaps that's why hearing his most recent album, Soundings, open with that clickity-clack of typewriter typing was so effective at grabbing my attention – it was a sound astoundingly unique in Mr. Heath's overall sonic palette. Either that, or I find something intimately relating in hearing the sporadic striking of a querty keyboard.

Still, Europa should satisfy at least another innate tug at my soul, wanderlust. No, I mean actual wanderlust, not Wanderlust, the Andrew Heath piece with the typewriter sounds (I can't get over it!). After his first couple albums most dealt with the idyllic, pastoral vistas of the British countryside, Heath set his ears to the recalled sounds of mainland Europe, reflecting the areas he'd travelled while touring throughout old lands of Empires long passed. It definitely lends itself to a different vibe compared to The Silent Cartographer and Flux.

Andrew's music has always had a sense of journey about it, though seldom with any particular destination in mind – you can imagine slowly floating down a small creek in a tiny village as his music plays. Europa, on the other hand, has far more territory to traverse, so that same languid pace isn't quite so prominent. For sure the pieces crafted here remain as calm and soothing as anything Mr. Heath's crafted – he's quite comfortable in his lane – but in trying to capture the sprit of the different regions of his travels, it doesn't feel like we're completely taking in all that each setting offers. Some local folk music flavours in Lunz, sight-seeing unique fowl fauna in Requiem, partaking in the pleasant child activities in The Summer Boys, checking out the historical cultural achievements in Sputnik | Little Earth. So much to see, so little time to see it all in (approximately 74-80 minutes, plus another twenty if you sprung for the extra-deluxe bonus tour, er, tracks).

Which is par for the course when it comes to tourist vacations, always in a hurry to get to your next destination, being herded like cattle onto buses or monorails before the deadline, and ooh wait, there's just one extra thing I want to see, no, don't leave me behind, I don't have enough local currency for a hostel stay, wait! Er, not that I've ever had to deal with such inconveniences when sight-seeing abroad. I've heard stories though. Oh, have I heard stories.

Dynatron - Escape Velocity

Aphasia Records/Blood Music: 2012/2016

Dynatron has been oddly quiet since Blood Music re-issued his two albums. Considering the three year gap between the 2012 release of this one and Aeternus on Aphasia Records saw a few complimentary EPs plus a bundle of compilation works (enough to fill two LPs worth!), that's quite a surprise. Aside from a lone 2016 EP with Blood Music (The Rigel Axiom), there's been nada since. I can understand a little grace period as his new label rolled out all his old material, but for a talent that had a remarkably productive four-year period, I can't imagine why Mr. Hasseriis would lose that momentum full-stop. Maybe the pressure of greater exposure's weighing down on him? Understandable, as a lot of these synthwave dudes are just chaps making a few quirky retro tunes for fun and releasing them on ultra-obscure net-labels, their biggest brush with fame positive comments on YouTube or Soundcloud. While Blood Music is far from being one of the music industry's major driving forces, it has grown into a rather big fish in its small, Scandinavian glacial-melt pond, especially since branching out from its death metal origins. Maybe Dynatron just needed a little me-time in the wake of all that increased attention, hunkering down in the studio for a triple-LP opus of epic space-synth awesomeness. One can hope.

Anyhow, time to dig into his first album, Escape Velocity. Straight-up, I like this one a little more than Aeturnus. Don't get me wrong (I prefer when you get me right), Aeternus was good fun and all, but this record tends to stick in my brain matter better. While I could make excuses for this like “catchier melodies” or “tighter songwriting”, I cannot deny a major reason boils down to cover art. Escape Velocity has everything a retro space-synth fan could hope for. Planets! Wormholes! Vector grids! '80s fonts! Purple! Not to mention individual art for every single track within the inlay! I love it when albums have that. Aeternus was cool and all, but it didn't have all that.

I also don't get as much of a sense of album narrative with Escape Velocity either. Okay, I felt that was a tad lacking with Aeternus too, but only in comparison to Dynatron's synthwave contemporaries on Blood Music (they've set a ridiculously high bar – like, cosmic high). It did have some though, spreading out the uptempo tunes with ambient interludes and reflective downtime. Escape Velocity mostly comes off as a clutch of dope space-synth tunes, though with it's own share of chill interludes too (Vox Magnetismi, Andromeda Bleeding - oh God, stop the sad-pain, please!). Then there's the mid-tempo cruisers (Aurora Nights, The Pulsating Nebula, Pulse Power), the orbit breaking action pieces (Space Operators, Fireburner, Wormhole, and Propulsion Overdrive including a Glorious Guitar for all your air shredding needs). All in all a tidy, fun collection of synthwave with its eyes in the stars rather than the paved streets of Miami. Gotta' love that consistency.

ACE TRACKS: June 2018

So this past month hasn't been the most active with regards to reviews, not even cracking the twenty-mark. Whatever has caused this plunge in productivity, you may wonder. Has the uncertainty of continued gainful employment sent my psyche into chaotic disarray? Perhaps a comparatively dreary June has sent me into a depressive sickness and funk? Or maybe those weekly bonus mini-reviews over on my Patreon have eaten more free writing time than I could have ever predicted? None of the above, I say!

Truth is, I've been distracted by something far more insidious, a Real Time Strategy game. Yes, I decided to dust off the ol' Rise Of Nations, and let me tell you, if you've ever played it (or it's genetic ancestors Age Of Empires and Civilization), it can be one serious time sink of an experience. Single battles aren't that big a deal, as they last no longer than ninety minutes anyway. No, what truly eats into your life are the Conquest Modes, five different campaigns where you get to... TAKE OVER THE WORLD (you heard it in the voice, admit it!). By adding Risk elements to the whole experience, you can spend whole days retracing the steps of Alexander and Napoleon, or take control of a Native American civilization to expunge European invaders from your lands (or vice-versa, if you must), not to mention a good ol' Cold War extravaganza (yay Nuclear Armageddon!). It's a very addictive, very time-consuming game, is what I'm saying. AND THEN there's the time spent watching various Let's Plays of Rise Of Nations, just to see if there's some tips or tricks I might have missed. I've concluded that, while everyone of these players are good, they all seem to miss a couple things that could have made their games much easier (does no one know about the TAB hotkey, seriously!??) Overall, there's never enough hours in the day, just never enough. But hey, here's some ACE TRACKS from June at least.


Full track list here.


MISSING ALBUMS:
Spacetime Continuum - Emit Ecaps
Ishqamatics - Earthbound
Curve - Doppelganger
Plunderphonics - Plunderphonics
Michael Mantra - D#m / Gm

Percentage Of Hip-Hop: 9%
Percentage Of Rock: 0%
Most “WTF?” Track: 9mm Goes Bang, at least as an opener.

Ah, this was a much smoother, flowing alphabetical playlist. Probably helps there's a hefty chunk of Werkstatt material on here, so a little synth- pop/wave homogeneity is present. The few detours into techno, breaks, rap, and trance at least help keep things spicy.

Spacetime Continuum - Emit Ecaps

Astralwerks: 1996

The whole kerfuffle surrounding a dodgy re-issue of Jonah Sharp's Sea Biscuit did result in one positive: rekindling my interest in his old Spacetime Continuum project. I always assumed it was among those nigh-impossible to acquire discographies, released in ultra-limited fashion or on hopelessly obscure labels. Well, Sea Biscuit was on Fax +49-69/450464 (among other collaborative works with Namlook), and Mr. Sharp did have his own print, Reflective, which was about as underground as it got back-when (though the lads at Ninja Tune liked them). In any event, preconceived notions confirmed, amirite? Yeah, then I learned Jonah was also signed to Astralwerks, possibly one of America's longest, most respected electronic music promoters. They partnered with the almighty Virgin, fer' crise'sakes! How an ambient techno guy got signed to a label that promoted the likes of Chemical Brothers and Fatboy Slim blows my mind, but then Astralwerks did lean that way at their start too. Couldn't resist those almighty Virgin dolla's tho'!

And as Astralwerks was plenty profitable during the compact disc's glory years, there's plenty copies of Spacetime Continuum floating about, making gathering some vintage Jonah Sharp far easier than I'd ever have anticipated. I haven't gotten all the albums, mind you (that collaboration with Terence McKenna seems a little too out there for my interests), a couple mid-'90s items suiting me just fine. And as always, alphabetical stipulation starts us off with one of Mr. Sharp's lesser known works, his alias Emit Ecaps. No, wait, that's the name of the album, Emit Ecaps just a couple one-off tunes for compilations. What does 'emit ecaps' even mean? I keep thinking drugs.

As for the album, Emit Ecaps, you can definitely tell it sprung from the mid-'90s, when electronic music scenes were frequently cross-pollinating, yet it's rather timeless too. Opener Iform gets down with that funky electro business, but doesn't sound retro in the slightest. Follow-up Kairo starts off in ambient techno's lane, but somehow gradually morphs into jazzstep d'n'b before shifting onto an ambient dub path – Sharp sure makes good use of the twelve minutes dedicated to this track.

And the genre fusion doesn't let up. While electro, Detroit techno (of course) and dub tend to dominate Sharp's aesthetic, there are nuggets of other genres scattered throughout too. Out Here spends a significant chunk of its time being flighty, bleepy space ambient before dropping some solid techno thump for its final minute. Vertigo has some kind of jungle-breaks bleep ambient techno thing going for it (and is pretty darn dope while doing it). Pod pairs grumbly technobass with floaty electro melodies, perfect for cruising the Oceanus Procellarum Boulevard. Funkyar could almost be a tech-house track, if it didn't stutter-pause its rhythm so often.

Listening through Emit Ecaps, I realize it's perhaps a tad too 'IDM' for the sort of customer base Astralwerks had started cultivating in '96, which sadly caused it to slip through the cracks. There's no excuse overlooking this little electro gem these days though.

John Shima - Elements Unknown

FireScope: 2017

But really, how cool is FireScope Records? Like, obviously B12's little label won't win many ultra-hip awards anytime soon, but the print is so deliciously retro, it can't remain a hidden treasure much longer. From the ageless spacey techno they promote, to the pulp sci-fi artwork their releases adorn, it has everything folks fond of phuture muzik can hope for. My only gripe is shipping from them is brutal expensive, but that's what I get for living in the coastal paradise that is the Pacific Northwest (we have our down days too). Or still handing out for physical copies. Could be worse though. I could be ordering the vinyl options, and Lord Nelly is the shipping costs for that beyond brutal – like, BDSM for the music connoisseur. Puts 'buying the vinyl' into perspective though.

When the boys behind B12 started expanding their label to include more artists, John Shima was the first to get the nod. Something of a journeyman producer, Mr. Shima first made his debut with the Fader EP on digital-only label Red Robot Records in 2010, offering up three tracks of deliberately throwback Detroit techno. Fine and dandy, though I don't think many folks noticed it at the time, as techno itself was still in the throes of navel-gazing minimalism, and why should anyone give much care that a UK guy was making Detroit techno. Only Detroit dudes and German guys could make Detroit techno in 2010, if any were making it at all.

John though, he kept plugging along, releasing single after single on label after label, even appearing on that Touched Bass cancer benefit a whole slew of techno producers contributed to. I suspected in the Bauri review that this project was how he came into contact with B12, and now we have another suspect in this FireScope drafting! Once is happenstance, twice a coincidence, but if I come across a third producer from that compilation also on FireScope...

If you've been following Mr. Shima's career since his start, then you'll be in fine, familiar hands with Elements Unknown. Of course, the odds of that being the case with my reader-base is astronomically low, so here's an obligatory rundown of the four tracks present. Elements: nice, chill spacey vibe, with soft electro beats and burbling acid bassline. Symbols: more pure Detroit on the rhythm end, including a little thudding 808, all the while spaced-out synths and blippy-bloopy melodies ride in support. Implant: straight-forward techno, this one, though spacey, loopy, and melodic; could easily fit in an old-school Laurent Garnier 'trance' set. Illuminate: back to the downbeat electro vibes, or ambient techno if you will, since it totally would have made the cut on one an Artificial Intelligence compilations.

Which is great, if you dig that era of techno! Or not, if you don't know it all. Yeah, Elements Unknown doesn't shake the FireScope stylee one iota, but then I doubt B12 brought John Shima on for any other reason than to stay their course.

Ishqamatics - Earthbound

Anodize: 2013

Lee Norris keeps giving his music away! Okay, it's as a 'thank-you' to those who were on the ...txt mailing list, as he's relinquishing control of that label to move onto other interests. As for what he's given up for grabs, some of it's been ...txt material, while others were handled by other prints, though as these remain his own works, I guess he has every right to do what he wants with it. A fair bit's been Nacht Plank albums, which I can't say I'm super-keen in nabbing every time – there's only so much ultra-dorky electronic experimental music I'm willing to take.

Not with Ishqamatics though. When Mr. Norris made Earthbound available, I eagerly snatched it up. Yeah, I had lukewarm feelings about Spacebound, but there were enough ideas floating about his and Ishq's creative ether that their other collaborations at least still intrigued me. Of course, the first album he made with Ishq (Spacebound came out a few months after) is well out of print now, so I didn't think I'd get around to hearing it anytime soon. Guess ol' Lee had other ideas for us procrastinating fans.

And boy howdy, am I ever tempted to check out their third record, Waterbound, after hearing this one. This is what I was expecting from these two pairing up, mostly on the rhythmic department. Yes, once again, an album with 'Earth' as a concept isn't afraid to dig its feet into the dirt. We're not talking about anything seriously funky or ass-wigglin' here, of course, but even the soft, dubby pitter-patter of minimalist ambient techno is more body movin' than the pure pad drone of Spacebound, such that I find myself more engaged with Lee and Matt's lengthy excursions. Yeah, even seventeen-plus minutes of opener Sky Hi. It's just so floaty and breathless, like hovering about cirrus clouds, snug in a thermal suit, the stars above tantalizing and teasing out an expedition if not for this accursed gravity well terra firma generates. Oh well, time to fall back to the soil from which we sprung (there's a long ambient outro, naturally).

I think what I prefer most about Earthbound is the fact it's only five tracks long, mostly averaging between ten to fourteen minutes in length. Much as I rib about 'noodly songcraft', truth of the matter is Lee and Ishq have a style that kinda' needs those extra half-dozen minutes to fully germinate in my brain matter, and Spacebound didn't give that opportunity much. It's the only explanation I can think of for how melodic ideas in Ringstone Round here stick with me better than they did in Through The Ringstone there. Same story with Piano Cruxia here, versus Piano Cruxia Subspace there. The extra ambient techno beats don't hurt either. Elsewhere, Angels On The Stairway still provides a mostly ambient outing (Ishq gotta' Ishq), while the titular closer takes us back out to the cosmos in fine fashion. Wait, shouldn't this then be called Spacebound?

Cirrus - Drop The Break

Moonshine Music: 1997

For as much as Moonshine Music pushed Cirrus as one of their premiere acts, I seldom gave them much attention. It never seemed prudent, see, so often appearing on compilations like Big Dirty Beats 2, Moonshine Overamerica 98, This Ain't Trip Hop?, plus assorted soundtracks (I've reviewed a few). The Los Angeles posse were well promoted by their label, making sure they could hang with all the big big-beat boys of the day (The Crystal Brothers, The Chemical Method, Junkie So Slim, Fatboy XXXL). As Cirrus never got name-dropped in discussion of “most essential breaks albums”, I just forgot about them, save the occasional spotting in a used shop. As in this case!

Actually, I'd already heard Drop The Break, one of my old Rupert peers having a copy for himself. I recall generally liking what I heard from it, surprised by the diversity on display for a supposed big-beat group. It honestly sounds like it was made a couple years prior, before big-beat was really a thing, much less a genre to board a bandwagon upon. Besides, Cirrus were still mixing things up with the acid breaks scene of California, their ravey roots far more prominent than any aspirations for rock-approved crossover success. Maybe they were hedging their bets a bit in dipping their fingers into any genre they could at the time, though once it became clear their biggest hits were big funky breaks, it's no surprise they committed to that road.

For now though, anything hot with the Moontribe crew was open game. You like house music? Then Cirrus has the hook-up with Superstar DJ and the slightly proggier Nassau. Or how about that good ol' tweakin' chemical breaks action, with the acid knobs twiddlin'? Then Leap Into The Light or the titular cut have you covered. Big obvious breaks anthems with all the James Brown samples you can handle more to your taste? Break In should sate your needs, especially the Transatlantic Move Mix (original's more proper big-beat bosh). Eh, you don't vibe with breaks at all, as it don't compare to the real business that is jungle? Well hey, guess what, Cirrus made a d'n'b cut too, the super peppy, piano jam October 27! Okay, this one might also be Venn Diagramming with happy hardcore.

If this all sounds too upbeat and hectic for you, then don't fret, as Cirrus show off their chill side throughout the album as well. Ghetto Of Life is breaks on the downbeat, Superstar is funky breaks on the downbeat, and Yallah Babibe is breaks on the su-u-u-per downbeat, suffocating in a thick smoke of hashish. Finally, there's Bionic Hippy, a tune that sounds like it should have been on an old-school progressive house collection rather than the closer of a supposed breaks record. No, wait, there's also a right funky slow-jammin' jam as a secret song as the proper closer. Man, Drop The Break is about as mid-'90s an 'electronica' LP as it gets with that.