Various - United State Of Ambience III - The Colonial Collection

Moonshine Music: 1995

A few months and two-dozen releases later, Moonshine offered up a third edition to their United State Of Ambience series. This would be the last of them, and indeed the label’s final foray into the ambient genre period. Interestingly, Moonshine’s early fascination with acid jazz would also cease shortly after this, instead moving onto trip-hop in subsequent years for their obligatory downtempo contributions. They did try their hand at a Café Del Mar type compilation - Ibiza Afterhours - but didn’t do much with the concept beyond ape all the popular tracks. By and large, Moonshine’s flirtation with the chill side of electronic music all but ended by the year 1997, finding better success in promoting harder club tracks like big beat, jungle, psy trance, happy hardcore, and gabber. Whoa, wait, aren’t you supped to ‘slow down’ the older you get?

Volume three of United State Of Ambience comes with an… interesting sub-line: The Colonial Collection. Ah heh, doubt that would fly two decades on now. But yeah, I get what Moonshine was trying to do here, suggesting an ethnically influenced assortment of tunes, but without falling in with tired buzzwords like ‘ethno’ or ‘world beat’, terms discerning dowtempo heads considered past their sell-by date at this point. Thus music inspired from former colonial claims is the tag: love it or lump it to your heart’s content.

The opening track comes care of Skylab, in the form of the ultra-spliffed nu-jazz outing Next. Huh, not terribly ‘colonial’, that one. It’s a decent track, with an interesting sample near the end of rumbling thunder slowed waayy down. A friend once thought it was someone moving a heavy stone slab unearthing an ancient treasure. Heck, maybe that’s what the sample is, given this compilation’s theme. I’m sticking with thunder though.

A few returning names must be brought up now. Electric Skychurch naturally is here, closing this CD out with the minimalist, meditative ambience of Outside. Salt Tank is also here, with a moody, tribal little number with Big Dipper that sounds nothing like what you’d expect of Salt Tank. Foregoing side-projects, Rabbit In The Moon comes correct here and does their thing with Dubassex. And while not exactly well-known in this scene, UK ‘space techno’ legends LA Synthesis show up with Du Androidis Dream, a lush ambient techno piece that has nothing to do with ‘colonial chill-out’, but whatever, I like hearing it anyway.

An interesting note about United State Of Ambience III: Electronic Empire-Building is its licensing/label-raid of Australian print Psy-Harmonics. Artists like Zen Paradox (Steve Law), Aquila (the O.G. Aqulia, according to Lord Discogs), and Lumukanda bring more of that ethnic flavor, but with a trippy, Planet Dog bent. And finally, two unknowns add ill’ trip-hop (Granule’s Withered In My Knapsack) and dubby-hop (Grain’s The Suspenders Of Acrobats), unsubtle in hinting where Moonshine’s downtempo muse was wandering that year. Still, can’t help but feel this CD was what they wanted the first United State Of Ambience to be.

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

Moonshine Music: 1994

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

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

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

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

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

Various - United State Of Ambience

Moonshine Music: 1994

Though the label that Steve Levy and Dave Audé built got its start in 1992, the Moonshine that came to dominate much of the American electronic music shops didn’t really take form until 1994. The scene’s growing momentum was inescapable, and the print was quick to capitalize on it, expanding the print’s potential while rebranding with a spiffy new logo that’d carry them into the future. They also abandoned most of the hardcore rave that marked their earliest output, taking on other genres that were defining a surging counter-culture. The first of these was an acid jazz collection (hey, it was popular in the early ‘90s!), followed by a progressive house rinse-out from Sasha and Seaman (dude!). Another edition to their already popular Speed Limit 140 BPM series followed that, with a compilation featuring the chill, trendy genre next: ambient.

Only trouble is I don’t think the boys at Moonshine quite knew much about ambient yet. The liner notes open with “Ambient music is the sound of unification, a gathering of tribes.” Que? What’s that got to do with ambient music? Had they not heard of anything from Eno, Orb, Aphex, or Roach? Meditation music, I can buy as having attributes of ambient, but most of the stuff gaining critical plaudits in art houses and chill-out rooms had little association with yoga meets and drum circles. Nay, what Moonshine’s actually peddling here is a world-beat collection, with some meditative, minimalist dubby stuff thrown in for flavor. Makes sense, what with groups like Enigma, Deep Forest, and so on about the closest thing most folks in America associated with electronic ‘chill-out’ music in those days. Throw a pile of public domain ethnic samples into a soup with tribal beats, and you too can have your very own ‘ambient’ compilation on the market!

I shouldn’t be too hard on Moonshine though, as they likely didn’t have much in the way of licensing options at this early stage of their lifespan. Some utter unknowns are floating in this tracklist, a couple of which only made appearances here. League Of Nations’ Impossible Religion sounds like it wandered off from a Pure Moods CD, and Goa: Season Of The Monsoon from Rhythm Method is only marginally better.

Of more interest are way early efforts from Hawke (Gavin Hardkiss) and Dubtribe Soundsystem, both doing ultra-moody, minimalist dub works, coming off like PWoG tracks. Side projects also get a look in, most prominent of them being the Rabbit In The Moon ambient venture LunaSol. Both Dawn’s somber piano-n-pad work and groovy world-beat action of Butterfly are wonderful tunes, almost worth the price of United State Of Ambience alone (especially since you can’t find them anywhere else). Young American Primitive doing his eclectic chill thing in Expansion, and Electric Skychurch doing their prog-house thing in Creation rounds out an… interesting compilation, to say the least. United State Of Ambience at least maintains its manifesto of ‘tribal ambient’ throughout – just a shame only half the tracks hold up though.

Various - United DJs Of America Volume 17: Scott Hardkiss (Original TC Review)

DMC: 2001

(2017 Update:
One of the very, very, very few perfect scores I gave out while writing for TranceCritic, and I still stand by it. Admittedly, what Scott Hardkiss does here probably isn't as impressive these days what with digital DJing making eclectic sets like these much easier to produce. Heck, such CDs were quite marketable and profitable for a short while a number of years back, kitchen-sink sets earning all the critical plaudits. Just makes Scott's effort here all the more remarkable having done it on vinyl, practically in spite of scene hype focusing its attention elsewhere.

Sadly, Scott passed away some four years ago now. Before then, he'd finally released a full-length album in 2009 called Technicolor Dreamer, all the while continuing to put out singles and working the DJ circuit until the end. Truly one of San Francisco's legends, taken far too soon.)

IN BRIEF: More house than a suburban district.

United DJs Of America: remember this series? If not, don’t feel too bad - it’s understandable. Despite having a number of highly respected names tied to it (Bones, Bambaataa, Knuckles, Vega, Farina, Craze… loads more), DMC had difficulty maintaining a consistent distributor, flopping around on several during its eight year run. In the end, it folded when the American dance industry entered a mild recession in the year of ‘03.

Shame, then, that San Francisco based DJ/producer Scott Hardkiss should be offered a go at this series so late in its run. Most likely know Hardkiss as that guy behind God Within and White Dove, but he was mixing up acid, breaks, and house on the West Coast scene for longer than that. As something of a recluse from the spotlight, he never quite broke out the way many of his peers did. And when finally given the opportunity to do so, his contribution to the United DJs legacy went largely unnoticed. And that, my friends, is an even bigger shame, as Hardkiss put together possibly one of the finest mixes the series ever saw.

For all its resilience and ace talent, the quality of United DJs often varied. It wasn’t uncommon for a classic release to be followed with an achingly average one, often due to the limitations DJs put themselves in by sticking to their chosen styles. Hardkiss, though, is a wildly eclectic DJ, and wouldn’t be satisfied with settling for a few forms of house. So, he went and made a mix with all of them!

Well, not all of them. Deep house is absent because this isn’t the kind of set for it. Electro house is obviously uninvited to this party either, since this release comes before that sound had really emerged. And of course euro-house is just too poppy. But yeah ...everything else - prog, acid, disco, tech; it’s all here.

So if this is such a varied mix, why did it go unnoticed? First impressions can go a long way, and in this case the opening tracks may have turned many away. Hardkiss starts with prog, and in 2001 this stuff was everywhere, with many sets sounding no different from the next. You’d be forgiven for dismissing this as Just Another Prog Mix based on the beginning.

But unlike many prog sets that drag with tension builders and transition tracks due to the room of two discs, Hardkiss knows he has far less time to get everything he wants in the seventy-four minutes a single CD offers. With no wasted meanderings, he mixes into his trademark funky acid house with Electric Skychurch’s Liberty and peaks the trip with a kaleidoscope of bubbly psychedelia in is rub of Tom Chasteen’s Freedom. And soon after that, we’re off into a festive atmosphere with The Heartists’ Bolo Horizonti, where Hardkiss gives a nod to New York as well with David Morales’ remix of the same track right afterwards.

You’d think these quick transitions between such different types of house (we’ve gone through at least four by the mid-way mark) would clash with abrupt mixes, yet Hardkiss keeps things flowing just fine, each track complementing the next without sounding forced. By contrast, a number of DJ mixes that attempt house sets of this nature sound like an MP3 player put on Random. Either it’s a testament to his skill as a DJ, or most other DJs have just grown lazy over the years by sticking with only a couple styles.

The house music continues jumping all over the place as the set carries on: funk is brought in courtesy of C-Mos’ 6-2 Young; having earned our trust with his track selection thus far, Hardkiss gets away with the goofy fun of Plastika and Conga Squad’s Disco Rockin’; energetic tech injects a dose of adrenaline with Jark Prongo’s Rocket Bass (and yes, that is Push It sampled there); good-natured hip-house from Armand van Helden and Common take us out with class; and sprinklings of San Francisco’s disco funk fill in the gaps.

Critiques then. Surely there has to be something that doesn’t hold up on this half-a-decade old set. Honestly, there’s very little worth criticizing here: track arrangement is superb and the mixing is mostly unobtrusive. A couple technical issues pop up but hardly hinder; in fact, it adds to the charm of this set, giving it a rawer live feeling and thus making Hardkiss’ few DJ tricks all the more engaging. And even if you don’t fancy house music, you’ll nonetheless enjoy the positive San Fran vibes that ooze from these tracks.

Steady readers of this website probably realize these five-star ratings are rare, but Hardkiss’ foray has everything we look for in a release that earns it: diversity, creativity, and - most importantly - enjoyable engagement from start to finish. Don’t miss out on this overlooked gem.

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

Various - Unfold #2: Christopher Lawrence

Moist Music: 2008

It's taken forever to finally get Christopher Lawrence into this blog’s archives! Whatever is the matter with me? Don’t I have any of his CDs in my collection? Sadly not, this one technically an abandoned TranceCritic promo that I neglected to review for reasons that utterly escape me now. As for never having picked up a C.L. mix or album, I have no excuse for it other than inexplicable apathy. I’ve seen his name for almost as long as I’ve been buying trance CDs, the chap a fixture on Moonshine after the turn of the century. Though I didn’t buy them, I generally liked what I heard, a tougher take on trance at a time when most jocks were getting fluffier and banal (or abandoning the genre altogether). When that label folded, he soon set up his own Pharmacy Music print, which he continues to run and promote podcasts through to this day. Along the way, he joined John ‘00’ Fleming in championing psy trance as the new hotness for proper trance t’ings, so aces in that development.

It’s during this period we find ourselves with Unfold #2, a short-lived series from Dutch label Fektive Records, and given an American release by Moist Music. Interesting note about Moist, a number of Moonshine refugees found new homes there, though it’s merely a roundabout coincidence that Lawrence finally ended up there too. Unfold itself was designed to highlight some of trance’s most notable old-school DJs still kickin’ out an underground sound, the first volume of which featuring Fleming (of course). A third edition had Marco V - an odd choice for the late ‘00s as he’d moved on from trance by that point - and that was all she wrote for Unfold (so sayeth The Discogs).

As for ol’ Chris’s go here, yeah, it’s a full-on psy set. Perhaps another reason I wasn’t quick in doing a review of this was my interest in the sub-genre had dwindled when this came out. I’m pretty sure I did like it somewhat, just not enough to inspire fingers to keyboard. Weird, because this stuff is pretty good all things considered. I only recognize a few names here (Mad Hatters, Cosmonet… Spacecat?), and I think I’ve heard some of these elsewhere (Basic’s Toyster and Audio-X’s And We Survive have very familiar, punchy hooks). For the most part though, it’s a classy, energetic collection of tunes for this style, with little of the random wibble the Israeli scene churned out. A few early tracks – Brain Damage’s Waiting For My Angel, Mad Contrabender’s Illegal Hardware and Killer from Gaudium Vs Dualsnug (god, these names) – even get my vintage senses tingling. Unfold #2 isn’t the best starting point for Christopher Lawrence, but it’s serviceable if you fancy the psy of the era.

Eh? CD1 of this two-discer? Oh, it’s just C.L. fitting in with the electro-progressive-plod-house of the time (hey, Mark Norman!). The opening track from Spooky (New Light (Strobelight Mix)) is nice, but the rest… yyy-eeah.

Aquascape - Underwater Stranger

Altar Records: 2011/2012

Label raids are good fun and all, but there does come a point where all the intriguing releases run out. There’s only so deep down the rabbit hole one should explore before considering just how necessary total and utter completion of a label collection is necessary. No, it’s true – no single print is one-hundred percent infallible. Plenty are ace, top grade even, with track records shaming many of their contemporaries. A perfect run of platinum quality releases though? Not bloody likely. Even my all-time favorites (Ultimae, Turbo, Waveform …Cryo Chamber yet?) have a few CDs in their catalog that, in hindsight, I really didn’t need to have. To say nothing of other labels I’ve dug into over the years.

Take Altar Records. They’ve a few acts I’m quite committed to scoping out with each album, and digging further has revealed a number of solid CDs along the way. That said, the label’s assorted yoga and meditation offerings definitely are not on my interest list, nor can I say I’m committed to checking out every psy-chill act that gets signed to them. Having exhausted most of the recognizable name, however, I’m left with an alternative selection process: does it have interesting cover art? Well hey, this Aquascape looks unique compared to the usual ultra-mystical stuff Altar goes with - simple, elegant, inexplicable manta ray. Sure, I’ll give this a shot, fits nicely with the ‘water theme’ I was splurging with at the time anyway.

And boy, was I not expecting this. A decent collection of psy-chill, sure, Altar’s early track record pretty spot on for this sound. Aquascape though, they kinda’ slipped by my attention, even after giving their Voice Of The Universe track on the Air compilation an Ace Track honor. The duo, comprised of Andrey Kostomarov and Anton Salikov, didn’t stick with Altar for long though, mostly contributing to Tunguska Electronic Music Society compilations and, more recently, Plusquam Chillout. Lord Discogs tells me they’ve only released one other album since Underwater Stranger, a digital LP on Tiger Grass Records called Sunrise In Fog. Damn, I hope that’s just incomplete information, because if this album’s anything to go by, they’ve got a good sound going for them.

Right, their take on psy-chill does occasionally dip close to the shores of sappy New Age stuff, but never such that I get my cringe on. Mostly, we’re fed a steady diet of dubby grooves, acidy sounds, and guitar solos. Oh yeah, Anton provides various acoustic, flamenco, and spacey guitar work. While not on the level of Steve Hillage, it adds a fresh dynamic to your standard psy-chill tropes.

I won’t deny Underwater Stranger lacks the sort of tunes that leap out and grab your ears by their balls (!?), but it’s an album I find enjoying front-to-back every time, easing me in for a smooth, chill ride as I go about my business. Music good enough as wallpaper, but dynamic enough for those times you want a little zone-out time too.

Murmur - Undertone

Meanwhile: 2007

One more album initially slotted for a spiffy TranceCritic review that fell completely through the cracks. I had no idea what I was dealing with upon seeing that cloud covered cover. Maybe some ambient? I mean, with a name like Murmur, it was probably some really calm, soothing, clever pad work – not exactly the old website’s bread ‘n’ butter, but at least interesting enough that I’d find a few talking points worth exploiting into a cumbersome 1,000 word review. Well, none of that, Undertone turning out as one of the dub technoiest dub techno releases I’d yet heard dub techno done go in the year 2007, and there was a lot of dub techno getting all dub technoey on our asses that year, I tell you what. If we were one of those trendy online rags hyping all that dub techno bizz’ness, maybe I’d have gone through with a review, but man, was I ever drawing a blank on this one, growing tired of the endless DeepChord rip-offs and Basic Channel clones.

Still, there must be something to Murmur’s debut LP if I’ve kept it around all this time, sparing it the same indignity of a quick plummet into the Recycle Bin among so much rancid, rubbish hardstyle. Because for all its repetitive faults, I still cannae deny myself a good ol’ bit of dub reverb tickling the hairs within my ears. Plus, I’ve come plenty far in my ability to wax the bull when talking up any ol’ release now, so what fear should I have now in taking on Undertone?

Finding out more about the men behind the alias, turns out. Lord Discogs provides not a clue, a mere link to a MySpace page I’m almost certain is defunct now. Half a dozen releases are tagged to the Murmur handle, finally drying up in 2010. The print they established with Bovill, Meanwhile, continues to this day, though with a ridiculously glacial output – the music Meanwhile makes is minimal, an so is their release schedule! (haha, such waxed bull). Poking about the webs a bit further, I discovered at least four other Murmurs out there, all coming out after this one. Some of them are post rock or metal, another might be the same guys doing drone ambient but could just be a coincidence, and the fourth offers festival bangers with titles like Break Glowstix Not Hearts. Safe to say that’s someone else.

Undertone, meanwhile (on Meanwhile!), is an incredibly clinical study in minimalist dub techno’s attributes. Beats are typically soft, very few hi-hats getting in the way of all that cavernous resonance. Other tracks are your standard explorations in dub-drone, going wherever the reverb takes you. A couple tracks (Bloodclot, Slip) could work as transitional pieces in a deep techno set, but little here is intended for dancefloor rinse-out. Nay, smoke that fat blunt, throw on your best audiophile headgear, and chill the fuck out with this collection of tracks. Peace.

Bluescreen - Undercurrents

Shadow Records: 2001

That the label that gave America an early taste of Ninja Tune and all things trip-hoppy, abstract-funky would throw its hat into the trance game was remarkable, daft even, among the most unexpected things I’ve ever come across in my music buying time. Still, with that scene popular enough with young punters, what harm was there in giving it a shot with a couple, nicely-priced compilations in Trance Sessions? Besides, it helped promote one of their signed acts, one Anthony Voitik, or Bluescreen as he goes by here.

This debut album came out a short while before Trance Sessions did, in of itself remarkable. Forget that whole ‘jumping on the trance bandwagon’ angle the compilations kinda-sorta reeked of, Shadow went and signed a totally unknown dude for a trance album. Not just any trance either, but deliberately old-school leaning stuff, tunes that wouldn’t sound out of place coming from MFS’ heyday, a style almost extinct by the year 2001 courtesy of the drudge-Dutch invasion. How’d they even make contact with him? Mr. Voitik hailed from the literal opposite end of the continent from Shadow headquarters, mostly residing in the hinterlands of British Columbia. For a time, only a few streets away from me.

Okay, full disclosure: I know ol’ Anthony. Like, went to the same high school as him. Drank at the same house parties as him. Rode four hours in his car to the same bush raves in Smithers with him. This probably doesn’t sound like a big deal to those living in major hubs of electronic music (London, Detroit, Berlin, New York City, San Francisco, Montreal… Vancouver?), where talent of all sort mingled with regular joes as they grew up. When I say our hometown is out on the fringes of Western society though, I ain’t kidding. It’s amazing that anyone from there ended up getting a record deal for a trance album, much less on a well-known trip-hop print like Shadow Records.

Thus me saying I like Undercurrents obviously comes with degree of bias, since I quite like the brand of trance Mr. Voitik enjoyed as well. If you fancied yourself some of that Paul van Dyk vibe but hated his turn towards the pop side of things, you’ll probably like this too. There isn’t much in the way of surprises, Bluescreen mostly sticking to an easy-going, traditional template to his tunes. Of notables diversions, he goes a little prog-house with Vanishing, Daybreak has some fun with the acid, and Surfacing works as a nice summation to the melodic points touched upon throughout. Aliendisco is about the only tune that leaps way out of Mr. Voitik’s established comfort zone - it’s speed garage, but with a sci-fi twist. I’ve never heard another speed garage track do this, much less produced by a trance guy. Corsten hasn’t gone there. Lieb sure never went there. Armin hasn’t gone there, and he’s gone to some wack places over the years. Tiësto probably would have though, if there was money to be made.

Fred Everything - Under The Sun

Turbo Recordings: 2000

West coast deep house was growing mighty popular at the turn of the century, especially out here on the West coast (who knew!). And while San Francisco was generally considered the hotbed of funky, groovy chill vibes perfect for lounges and beach parties, Canada had a few talents making inroads on a scene long dominated by Chicago transplants. Fred Everything was probably the biggest of this bunch, slightly odd considering his Quebec origins, not to mention his first major record deal was with UK print 20:20 Vision. Still, his tight, loopy beatcraft fit snugly with the likes of Mark Farina and Miguel Migs, remaining a consistent presence in the deep house scene throughout the ‘00s, eventually finding a natural home with OM Records. No, wait, that deal only lasted a few years, all the while working on establishing his print with Lazy Days Recordings. That one’s lasted a little longer (to this day, in fact), though Fred’s output has slowed as of late (edit: but with quite the uptick this past year!). He’s still truckin’ along though, never abandoning the deep house vibe that defined his early success.

Speaking of that early success, here’s Mr. Everything’s first full-length effort, Under The Sun. Naturally this came out on 20:20 Vision, but as ol’ Fred had ties to the Montreal club scene, tastemaker Tiga was there to offer a Canadian (and thusly American) distribution deal on his trendy Turbo label. Win-win for both players involved, as Under The Sun wouldn’t get lost in cumbersome import technicalities, and Turbo could finally have its first proper album out on the market after a long run of DJ mixes (ADNY’s Selections ’97-2000 was more a compilation, if you want to get finicky technical about such things). And while I won’t complain about the geometric architecture cover photo for Turbo’s release, it does seem odd they’d replace the overhead cross-country ski race shot that made up the 20:20 Vision version. Strikes me as more authentically ‘Quebec’, is what I’m getting at, but maybe Tiga figured that was a little too on the nose for the music’s target audience. Who am I to question Tiga’s judgment, eh?

If you know anything about deep house from the early ‘00s, you’ll be familiar with Fred Everything’s sound. Sometimes he goes funkier (Let You Down, Derby, Universal Mind), other times jazzy (Without), or simply soulful (Another Soul). Nor is he beholden to a strict house rhythm, getting acid jazz shuffly on Good Morning, or having a stab at retro electro with Huggin’Kissin. And speaking of the retro, how about a touch of talk-box action in Revolution, sure to get your Daft Punk triggers flaring.

And that’s Under The Sun, a solid collection of deep, groovy vibes all about, and now a review lo-o-o-ng overdue finally finished. What, don’t you remember I promised this when going through all those Mixed Goods burned CDs of mine? That I basically lifted this album for one of them? Back in… oh wow, that was a while ago now.

Inspectah Deck - Uncontrolled Substance

Sony Music Entertainment: 1999

As a rebel without a cause, Inspectah Deck leads the charge, forever one of Wu-Tang Clan’s most fiery spitters, but rushing into battle with no clear objective. He’ll drop that philosophical bomb atomically, but what of the follow-through? With a half-dozen albums deep of evidence, he seldom seemed capable of sustaining that first-strike verbal carnage into a lasting campaign. At least, that used to be the charge laid upon one Mr. Hunter, but his recent work as Czarface having redeemed a solo career that never delivered the classic record hip-hop heads expected of him. Who knew adopting the persona of a cyborg crime-fighting mafia-don that can shoot frickin’ laser beams from his eyes would do the trick? I think Czarface is all about that, if the art is anything to go by. I should look into it.

For now though, let’s check out Uncontrolled Substance, Inspectah’s debut from 1999, four years overdue and coming out when Wu-Tang hype was on the wane. Even getting the whole Clan in to help on a project was proving difficult at that point, most members focusing on solo work while building up their own protégés. Compounding problems further for the Rebel INS was the fact the early demo beats RZA had written for his debut were lost in a studio flood, forcing that album to be scrapped and started over. Yes, we were denied vintage mid-‘90s RZA beats with Deck undoubtedly spitting fire over them all, with the full Clan in support.

Instead, we get okay beats from RZA protégés 4th Disciple and True Master, though Deck’s own productions outshine most of theirs. RZA himself provides a pair of beats too, though are far from his glorious early, gritty sounds. Guest spots from the Wu fam’ are sadly minimal, with U-God and Masta Killa only offering a couple verses, and a few additional guest spots from second-tier affiliates like Street Life and Killa Sin.

Ultimately, it’s all on the Rebel INS to carry Uncontrolled Substance, and he does excel there, mostly dominated by battle-raps no one else in the Clan can top, with other stuff mixing things up throughout. There’s hood tales like Word On The Street and Trouble Man (with Pete Rock funk at the board on that one); clubbier offerings like R.E.C. Room and Movas & Shakers (why can’t I ever get Deck’s lyrics of “Bartender! Two Kahlua and milk with crushed ice in the blender” out of my head?); conscious diatribes like The Cause and Elevation (with a Deck beat that was reused in Ghostface’s Supreme Clientele); and some jams for the ladies too (Lovin You, Forget Me Not, and the slinky noir-funk of Femme Fatale… wait, that’s two reviews in a row with a Femme Fatale… the odds, mang!). Strangely, it’s a couple interludes, where Inspectah’s freestyling over a pounding 808 beat, that get me charged the most. They’re only ten seconds each, but damn if I wouldn’t pay good money to hear a full record of that!