Sasha - Xpander EP (2018 Update)

Ultra Records: 1999

(Click here to read my original TranceCritic review)


Feels like this has been a lo-o-o-o-ong time coming, the last of my earliest reviews needing a proper overhaul. Technically, that's not true, another from those first few shaky months of TranceCritic writing lurking down (up?) in the 'A's of my album collection. Doubt there's much anticipation for another Eat Static review though, whereas everyone's always interested in another take on Xpander. Especially when one's original take is a grotesque word salad of amateur track-by-track detailing.

Frankly though, there's not much I can expand upon the Xpander discourse (except bad puns, clearly). The tune holds up astoundingly well two-decades on, still sounding light-years beyond what its prog contemporaries were offering, and there was no lack of bombs from the year 1999, believe you me. I mean, obviously the big synth leads and twinkly melodies are the memorable features, but mang', listen to what's going on in that rhythm too! What even is that burbling, churning low-end? Not the bassline, that's for sure – it's just superficial fluff, yet the sound design on it is astounding! Is it any wonder folks were hot for Airdrawndagger to drop if that level of detail was put into a big, obvious anthem like Xpander? Imagine hearing such music for a whole album's worth. No, really, keep imagining it – we never did get what folks were expecting with Sasha's final LP effort.

It's not like Mr. Coe had to craft such an exquisitely produced track with Charlie May. When this single came out, it was more in service as what was expected of top tier DJs of the time. No matter how deep your crates, how impeccable your track selection, or how masterful your mixing, the punters of the world demanded a signature anthem to your name. Digweed had Heaven Scent, Oakenfold had If I Could Fly, Tenaglia had Elements, Tiësto had his remix of Delerium's Silence, and so on. So too it appeared the case with Sasha's Xpander, the requisite anthem folks going to his shows could happily expect to hear every time. Only he overshot, and now the tune is getting orchestral remakes. Take that, Digweed!

The other tunes on this EP were obviously overshadowed when Xpander first dropped, but have gained more respect over the years for not being as blatant as the main track is. If anything, it showcases where Sasha's muse more generally wanders, never quite coalescing into something easily identifiable while plucking traits of personal favourites of his past. Belfunk's got that chuggy, proggy groove before melting into Orbital, morning-after bliss. Rabbitweed gets in on that ominous prog-breaks business with shades of Way Out West thrown in – and again, just an insane amount of detail in the percussion. Baja provides the lengthy chill, comedown vibe with ethnic samples and dubby percussion. Huh, y'know, under another producer's handle, this could have passed for psy-dub. Never noticed that before. Oh, the strange alternative timeline we could have lived in had Sasha been swayed into the psy camps instead.

Various - X-Mix: Hardfloor - Jack The Box

Stud!o K7: 1998

This is the tenth and final volume of X-Mix, ending on a surprisingly retro note. However, Stud!o K7 had a new-fangled DJ mix series gaining steam - DJ-Kicks - and the market for trippy home videos full of tekno musiks was on the wane by the end of the century. Like, who'd have ever guessed ravers could actually watch such weirdness on regular TV channels? No, best to wrap things up, maybe initiate a label rebrand in the process, and let X-Mix slowly recede from the collective memory as but a quirky artifact of '90s nostalgia. Makes springing for the DVD editions that much more tempting, right?

If tapping German acid masters Hardfloor for a throwback acid house set wasn't odd enough, the accompanying video is remarkably retro too. For sure there's still computer editing and CGI trickery involved, but more than ever before, the studios utilized ample amounts of 9mm film footage, splicing, cutting, and layering with effects to such a degree that... well, they honestly look like the sort of underground visuals you'd often see at clubs at the time, and well into the here and now. Again, it makes sense, the CGI rendering of older X-Mix videos easily capable with computer screen-savers by '98. Oh, you know if you went to budget party at the time, you'd find a Windows Visualizer projection on a blank wall. Unearthing '70s Hong Kong movie footage, however, and syncing it to acid house? Now that's art!

One thing I wonder, though, is whether going old-school was Hardfloor and !K7's intent with the final X-Mix all along. Like, I've no doubt the label wanted misters Bondzio and Zenker regardless, but might have they been expecting a more modern take on acid? I'm not even sure they could have delivered on that front, most acid of the day the hard, bangin', London Tekno Crew stuff, which Hardloor generally eschewed. Acid house though, in all its original, late '80s form, was basically dead, and at least another half-decade away from any sort of retro revival.

So aside from a few newer cuts of their own (because Hardfloor wasn't a thing yet in '88), our intrepid acid duo break out their crates of all the acid alum. Phuture is here! Fast Eddie is here! Adonis is here! Sleezy D. is here! Armando is here! Steve Pointexter is here! Dudes who like 'Jack' are here! Oh, sweet, even Bam Bam's Where Is Your Child? is here, a right-proper mood setting in the early going of this set.

Folks tend to forget just how weird and evil this music sounded when it first emerged, what with ever weirder and eviler music emerging throughout the '90s. That Bam Bam cut though, it never fails to send the creeps sweeping through your spinal column. I can only imagine what actual parents thought of it then. Or, heck, even now! Forget the obnoxious noise of brostep, Where Is Your Child? will still panic conservative sorts.

Various - X-Mix-3: Richie Hawtin & John Acquaviva - Enter: Digital Reality

Stud!o K7: 1994

No longer satisfied with one DJ for their X-Mix series, Stud!o K7 settled for nothing less than a tag-team set for volume three. Or they had no choice in the matter, Richie Hawtin and John Acquaviva a package deal at this stage of their careers. If you want one of these techno dons, you gotta' book the other – a brilliant marketing tactic that carries on to this day by many scene-whoring sorts (Steve Angello & Sebatstian Ingrosso, Excision & Datsik, Dimitri Vegas & that guy who shouts shit). Still, though one would go onto mega-stardom while the other remained a 'DJ's DJ', at this point you couldn't think of one without the other, their Plus 8 print one of the hottest labels to emerge out of Windsor Detroit-region in the early '90s.

It's remarkable that for a German label, !K7 didn't really rely on their local DJs in this series. Yeah, Paul van Dyk provided the MFS-showcase kick-off, but his pure trance set's now regarded as an outlier in the X-Mix canon. DJ Hell and Hardfloor would get mixes down the road, but !K7 did their homework in scouring the globe for techno talent in need of a debut commercial set for their discographies. That... was among their manifestos, right? It's definitely a trend they held up for most of these releases. As an aside, I find it amusing that, for as many Genre Defining, Trend Setting, Forward-Thinking, and Very Important mix CDs Richie Hawtin would put out over the years, his first mix CD was in service of old-school CGI rave videos.

But first, we're treated to Mr. Acquaviva's mix, featuring tunes from Speedy J, Hardfloor, Laurent Garnier, and L.S.G. Whoa, wait, what's Blueprint doing here? Aren't these guys techno through and through? Maybe Richie is, but John's often more adventurous with his sets, and X-Mix-3 is no exception. Despite burning through a half-dozen tracks in around twenty minutes, the opening portions of his mix has a surprising prog-house vibe going for it. Obviously not proper prog or the like, but techno and acid house that's rather groovy, chill, and spaced-out for the time. Can't deny being a little put off hearing such blatant sampling of Steve Hillage's Garden Of Paradise in Orson Karte's Metamorphosis though.

Eventually John settles into the sort of acid techno you'd expect from the owners of Plus 8, building things to a nifty crescendo of Hardfloor's Alternative. When Hawtin takes over, he can't help but use an ambient interlude bridging things together, a small letdown coming off the acid high of Hardfloor, but Hawtin's gotta' start fresh for his unfussy minimalism.

His set runs shorter than Acquaviva's, and does about as you'd expect of a mid-'90s Hawtin rinse-out (just tunes, none of that micro-edit mixing). Spastik's here, of course, as is Spaz, his LFO collab' Loop, a remix he did on Teste's The Wipe, plus cuts from Lemon8, Peelo, and Speedy J. Man, did techno dudes ever love them some J' back then.

Various - X-Mix-2: Laurent Garnier - Destination Planet Dream

Stud!o K7: 1994

Even 'Back In The Day', there were a fair number of home videos featuring trippy CGI art with the tekno musiks. Few garnered as much prestige as the X-Mix series though – well, about as prestigious as this medium ever got. Studio !K7 (then Stud!o K7) had been dabbling in the AV market since the late '80s, mostly providing VHS tapes of alternative rock and punk bands popular in Germany. Somewhere along the way, they got hip to that 'techno' thing going on at underground clubs and love parades, and released a trio of tapes featuring such music dubbed 3 Lux. As there were no official videos made for tunes like Cosmic Baby's Cosmic Cubes, Alec Empire's King Snake, or Sven Väth's Caravan Of Emotions, !K7 commissioned original videos from various CGI studios to go with the music, much like you'd see on screens at clubs (so many colourful, spinny geometric shapes!). It proved such a success that !K7 rebranded the series as X-Mix in 1993, now with enough scene clout that it could provide fresh sets from top-tier DJs not only on VHS, but with a tie-in CD as well.

Though based out of Germany, the series wasn't rare on my side of the planet, even if you'd have to pay a significant import fee for them. Oh man, was it ever worth it, few CDs at the time offering as sublime of techno sets as you'd get with X-Mix, some Very Important DJs making their debut commercial mixes with this series. Like Laurent Garnier!

I've gone on about early-era Garnier before (prominently with his compilation album Early Works), but here's a refresher. The Frenchman served as a sort of bridge between Detroit techno and German trance, his sound often taking elements of both such that you could honestly label it either-or, and folks wouldn't bat an eye. X-Mix-2: Destination Planet Dream's no exception, ol' Laurent finding himself some of the tranciest techno on the globe (and maybe beyond?).

Many well-known artists make up his set: Underground Resistance, Derrick May, Carl Craig (by way remixing Brian Transeau's Relativity - yes, really!), Kenny Larkin, Dave Angel, Planetary Assault System, Galaxy 2 Galaxy (UR again), plus Hardfloor's remix of Robert Armani's Circus Bells, if you're not tired of it yet. Was this tune overplayed? Sure feels like I keep stumbling into it.

Most of the tracks Garnier uses feature plenty of flange-effects on percussion, simmering acid, and looping, spaced-out pad melodies, which sounds like old-school trance in a nutshell, but all in a very Detroity sort of way. Really, the most pure trance this set goes is Essence Of Nature's Blue Orchidee, but obviously a Ralf-Sven production would at this time, even if that cut's rather bang-on for a Harthouse single. We also get bleepy techno (Rhythim Is Rhythim's Icon), buzzy minimalism (Mike Dearborn's Deviant Behaviour), and a comedown finisher with Garnier's own Go To Sleep. Yay, a track that properly ties into the mix's concept title!

Cottonbelly - X Amounts Of Niceness (NYC Sessions 1993-2004)

Wrong Records: 2004

Way, way, way back in the early days of TranceCritic, I'd post lists of albums I'd bought with intention to review, updating it with each purchase. Figured it was a handy way of letting our scant readership know what to expect, when I'd average around one review every two weeks (such work ethic). I usually met my quota, but one item I listed continuously popped up on those lists that never materialized was this particular collection of tunes produced by Cottonbelly. I simply had no clue how to approach it. While by no means the most obscure thing I'd have thrown up on the fledgling website, I still had scant information to work with. There wasn't much in the way of liner notes to help, Lord Discogs was still in its early stages of utility, and I was too lazy to search the wider web for whatever knowledge nuggets might be floating out there. Besides, who reading a 'trance' website would care about a dubby, jazzy, world-fusion, downtempo guy? Okay, a second one – Bill Laswell was already pushing it.

But finally, Mr. Cottonbelly's time to shine has come at last, even if only at the tail end of a years-long, insane project I've inflicted upon myself. And fortunately, there's more Discogian Data at my disposal than ever before! Not that there's much there anyway, X Amount Of Niceness the only long-player to his credit. Truthfully, he was more known as a remixer, of which many of his works are collected here. The first tune I ever heard from Cottonbelly was, in fact, a remix of Noiseshaper's The Only Redeemer, plus that nifty Tempest Dub tune that appeared on Quango Records' Dub Selector compilation. Surprisingly, that cut doesn't appear on here, though one of his earliest works do, in Edge Test 1 from 1993. That came out on Edge Records, a label established by Gordon Matthewman. Hm, Cottonbelly's real name is Stuart Matthewman. Might these be brothers? If so, that was awfully nice of Gordon to give Stuart a break like that. I wonder what other credits Stuart Matthewman has. *dives down the Discogs hole* Oh! Oh my...!

Turns out Mr. Matthewman is a member of Sade, the British soul-jazz group with huge hits throughout the '80s. They went on hiatus after 1992's Love Deluxe, so Stuart pursued his own musical interests as Cottonbelly throughout the '90s. This included doing remixes for Gregory Isaacs (Night Nurse), The Ananda Project (I Hear You Dreaming), Maxwell (Luxery), and Cirque Du Soleil (Africa ...no, really!). In the meanwhile, he carried on making his own brand of dubby reggae jams, comfortably rubbing shoulders with the likes of Kruder, Dorfmiester and Thievery Corporation.

All his works are definitely of a 'niceness' quality, and he probably could have maintained a tidy solo career in the downtempo scene to this day. However, when Sade reconvened in the new millennium, it effectively put an end to the Cottonbelly era of Mr. Matthewman's discography. Too busy touring, I guess.

Raekwon - The Wild

Empire: 2017

I feel neglectful when it comes to Raekwon. It was his Immobilarity that opened my eyes to all that hip-hop could be in terms of narratives, and both Cuban Linx albums are stone-cold classics in the Wu pantheon. Unfortunately, his other albums don't spark much interest in yours truly. It's not that I doubt his verbal skills on any of his projects, but I've been burned a few too many times on 'mediocre Wu' to scope out everything all these MCs release. Rae's no less immune to the syndrome, a lesson learned with The Lex Diamond Story. Unless he's bringing something dope to the table with production to back it up that gets the knowledgeable heads I trust talking, I give his stuff a pass.

Turns out Mr. Woods has released an album that's gotten knowledgeable heads talking, or at least positively buzzing to such a degree that I haven't seen since Cuban Linx, Pt. 2. While by no means is it being hyped to Cuban Linx levels (because really, the only thing that could generate such talk is a Part 3), I figured it was about time I got myself re-associated with The Chef in The Wild.

And this... this is pretty darn good! Mind, I'd never go into a Raekwon joint expecting something revolutionary, not at this late stage of his career. Just bring me more of those vintage storytelling raps with witty street slang and a slew of solid beats to back them up, and I'm more than sated. Rae' easily delivers on the lyrical front, providing his usual assortment of street tales, reflective raps, and braggadocios boasts about living and maintaining his good life after so many years in the game. I was particularly thrown for a loop on Marvin, a retelling of the life of Gaye with Cee-Lo Green belting out a chorus as only he can. Where did Rae' find the inspiration to rap about that tale of triumph and tragedy? And damn, does producer Frank G ever provide the perfect soul loop for this tune (not to mention his other contribution of Nothing - methinks he gets Rae's vibe quite well indeed).

The soul loops mostly dominate The Wild, which makes sense as Mr. Woods' own flow has taken on something of a mellow, husky soul itself as he's aged. He still finds time to fit in with current trends though, including a twitchy, synth-heavy cut with Lil' Wayne in My Corner (he don't rap much of anything new, but he does sound good rapping it), a gothic tune with synthy choirs and organs in M&N with P.U.R.E. (don't know him), and a slice of trap in You Hear Me to close The Wild out. It's... fine for trap, I guess? Doesn't really fit with the rest of Rae's vibe on this album though, especially as a closer. Don't worry, Shallah, you don't have to jump on every trend with your work. Like, no one remembers that 'crunk' jam off Lex Diamond.

Oasis - (What's The Story) Morning Glory?

Epic: 1995

The only Oasis album you probably have, even if you're not an Oasis fan. Not to say their other albums weren't super-popular and mega-sellers, but (What's The Story) Morning Glory? absolutely trounces its discographic neighbours many times over. Heck, their debut album Definitely Maybe didn't even chart here in Canada. It did eventually reach Platinum sales though, riding the coattails of Morning Glory, which hit number one with a bullet, and Top 10 nearly everywhere else in the world. It even reached fifth on the Zimbabwean Albums Chart – I didn't even know Zimbabwe had such charts!

Now the obligatory, not-shocking truth-bomb from yours truly: this is the first time I've ever sat down to hear Morning Glory in full. Yeah, I know, big surprise that one of the biggest rock albums of the '90s featuring some of the most overplayed radio singles ever passed me by when 'techno' was my calling card. It's not like my teenage years weren't already spent hearing half this album everywhere I went. Wonderwall was inescapable. Champagne Supernova was inescapable (because ain't nothing more appealing to teenagers than singing about getting high). Don't Look Back In Anger was inescapable. I think I escaped Some Might Say though, having only vague recollections of hearing it in the past. Still, the utter omnipresence of Oasis quickly led me to Britpop rock fatigue, so odds of me hearing a whole album of music from the band cratered fast and hard. Damn, I even blame them for my continued avoidance of The Chemical Brothers' Dig Your Own Hole, because like Hell I wanna' hear a Gallagher going on about setting suns in my 'techno', yo'.

We're two decades removed from OasisMania though, so maybe now I can appreciate these songs with a fresh perspective, without those hummable choruses ingrained like nails upon my brain. And aside from Wonderwall, I do dig these jams. The songcraft on display is unquestionably worthy of the hype, to say nothing of how it inspired British rock's demand for big, emotional anthems that go down well at music festivals. Liam's vocals really pop, Noel's guitar leads hook and glide you along, and everything else... kinda' mushes into a big wall-of-noise assault.

Was Morning Glory always so brick-walled in the mastering? I never noticed it when hearing the singles on the radio or the TV, but it's unmistakable now that I'm paying attention to the album proper-like. Apparently this was a big issue at the time, audiophiles complaining about the lack of dynamics for a major record such as this. The producer, Owen Morris, admits to mastering in such a manner, as much a result of inexperience in the studio as his shying away from “posh production values”. I can't say it's a deal-breaker in enjoying this album – the melodic leads remain the focal points, as they should – but it's weird saying Morning Glory is best experienced played in the background, ignoring nuances you couldn't pick out if you tried.

Various - The Werkstatt Chronicles - 2009-2014

Werkstatt Records: 2014

I didn't plan on getting this. All I wanted was a nifty Arcade Metropolis t-shirt from the label's Bandcamp. For some reason though, they threw this digital download of fifty-six tracks in with the article of clothing I purchased. That's... a lot more Werkstatt Records music than I'm willing to take in. It'd translate to at least three CDs of material, maybe four, and who wants to read about that much amateur efforts at techno, industrial, EBM, and synthwave?

That isn't meant as a slam. Listening to the early portions of this compilation, it's clear Werkstatt and their artists had some growing to do. The best compliment I can give this stuff is that it wouldn't sound out of place as filler on a late '90s Hypnotic/Cleopatra CD, so take that as you will. I get the sense these musicians were more enamoured with creating clever artist names than the actual music they were making: Boogie Vertigo, Azure Defiance, The Psychedelic Dream Vortex, Droid Sector Decay, Avalanche Reverb Prozac, United States Of Atrocity, Moscow Locomotives, DJs On Acid Destroy Commercial Europe, Synthesizer.

One of the few early acts that does leap out with stronger songcraft chops compared to everyone else is, unsurprisingly, Beatbox Machinery; aka: Toxic Razor, the dude who founded Werkstatt. And when Kriistal Ann is added for their duo of Resistance Of Independent Music, it's clear the two will have a lasting impact on the label's future prospects. It's as though Werkstatt's finally found its footing and ready to take it's next step forward - from digital dumping ground to a place where aspiring, talented producers could make a home. Or use as a launching point for a larger career at least.

Okay, it wasn't all at once. Kriistal Ann doesn't make her first appearance until track fifteen, and for many tracks after, it's still shaky ground between improved, interesting synth music and noisy, nonsensical industrial waffle (got the dreaded “TURN THAT SHIT OFF!” while playing it at work). Is it any surprise that as Werkstatt steadily inches towards synthwave, the better the overall product sounds? Or, I dunno, maybe there's folks who prefer the aggro industrial stuff over the chipper, poppier synth music – I don't have enough involvement with the industrial scene to make that informed an opinion on what's represented here. It could be top-tier tuneage for all I know. I'm sure, however, we can all agree that EBM is the fun compromise between these two worlds!

Once The Werkstatt Chronicles passes track thirty, the synthwave really starts taking over, though EBM still gets a few looks in too. Hey, GosT is here! And there's Kriistal Ann's darkwave solo stuff. Ooh, I recognize more of these names: Ghost Patrol, Radio Poltergeist, Dan Terminus, Resist Concept. But yeah, most of my Werkstatt exposure comes after this period of the label's lifespan. T'was an interesting jaunt into their early years, but it isn't the music that lured me into their fold in the first place.

Legiac - The Voynich Manuscript

Dronarivm: 2016

Hey, it's another Dronarivm release. Remember when I went through a bunch of these at the start of this months-long alphabetical backlog? My how time flies. Been nearly one-hundred reviews written since the last item from this label, and the fact I'm still not through yet sends my mind to the lands of Bogglin. Heck, this marks the fifth 'V' album in this batch, which increased my total 'V' albums by 30%! Can you just imagine how many 'W's there are? (spoiler: not many)

There hasn't been much released under the name Legiac, but the players involved have definitely been busy bodies. Dutch brothers Don and Roel Funcken started out doing glitchy braindance, IDM, and electro under a number of aliases, most prominent being Funckarma, Cane, and Mystery Artist. They got a look-in with Very Important IDM labels like Warp and Skam, but never broke out of obscurity in any significant way. The other player involved in Legiac is Cor Bolten, who Lord Discogs tells me was active with new wave bands since the early '80s, whilst doing film score work on the side.

Seems like an unlikely pairing with these folks, but somewhere along the way, they did team up. First it was doing experimental stuff as Cor Bolten, Don Funcken & Roel Funcken, then doing downtempo, abstract stuff as Dif:use, and finally IDM leaning material as Legiac. That one looked to be a one-off effort, and a final one, the individual parties going their separate ways again. A few years ago though, Roel and Cor dusted Legiac off, The Voynich Manuscript their second album under the revitalized project. Yo', where Don in all this?

When I first dove into this album, I wasn't expecting something as melodic as we get here. True, I didn't have any prior musical knowledge of Misters Funcken and Bolten, just my preconceived notions based on what Dronarivm works I have taken in. And for sure there's ample amounts of droning ambience and blanketing field recordings present, but often used in a subtler, graceful manner than most other works in this vein. There's space and depth in these layers of sound, with melodic tones at the fore, but never so prominent they drown out the burbling static and white noise lurking underneath. What's remarkable is the chaotic sub-surface of sound is so consistent throughout this album, whenever it does recede, it not only makes the melodic leads leap out, you also feel that absence as though you've lost a chunk of your soul. Or maybe it's just like that in the final piece Ambikythera Mechanism, what with opulent organ tones driving things forward.

It really is a gorgeous composition, and many of the early tracks in The Voynich Manuscript are darn lovely as well. However, there's also a lengthy stretch towards the back-half that kinda' dithers about with wallpaper sonic doodles and experimental drone. They're fine in their own right, but compared to the highs this album hits, kinda' forgettable too. So it goes.

The Oak Ridge Boys - Voices

Platinum: 1999

Greetings, people of the year 2018. I am 2073 Sykonee, but not the 2073 Sykonee you may have gotten to know in the year 2017. Nay, that Sykonee comes from a different timeline, one that seems impossible to believe, but then from where I sat, so does yours. Sykonee Prime tells me he grew tired of reading that perspective, and scoured the timelines for one where the Oak Ridge Boys never existed, which is where I come from. Things certainly are different compared those other timelines – why, I'd even qualify it as “better”, what with a lack of nuclear arms race happening. Yes, we eventually harnessed nuclear power for our own ends, but after WW2 ended (which did take longer in my timeline, true). Seems without the original Oak Ridge Quartet doing gospel shows for the engineers working on The Manhattan Project, they just weren't inspired enough to keep their work productive. The war ended before they completed their work, and pos-

Oh, right, I'm supposed to review an album of music from Oak Ridge Boys, not detail my alternative history. Sorry, it's fascinating how much impact this group has had over the course of your events – it's as though they're everlasting.

Since I have no knowledge about Oak Ridge Boys, Sykonee Prime offered me some quick notes on the group's status when they released this album Voices. Seems after several years of singing gospel, they switched to country with a lot of commercial success. Then something called “The Eighties” happened (wow, that decade was that infamous for you?), and one of their key members, William Lee Golden, left, replacing 'The Beard' with 'The Mullet'. The group's commercial aspirations petered out for a while, then Golden returned, 'The Beard' once more preserving the Oak Ridge Boys legacy.

Voices was their proper return-album, though had too much competition from newer country stars like Shania Twain, Alan Jackson, Dixie Chicks, Tim McGraw, and Chris Gaines to make much impact (I don't know who any of these people are, but I'm assured they're Very Important). Voices was thus regarded as an album that satisfied fans of the Oak Ridge Boys, but nothing newer country fans cared about, officially relegating the group to 'legacy status'.

Now, we definitely have country music of this sort in my timeline, though I doubt any of y'all have heard the likes of Topper Gantley or Nancy White or Slim Wittikens. Can't say I've heard any country group with vocal harmonies quite like this though. Wow, especially that bass singer! Is he the bearded guy? Really, the clean-shaven one? The song topics are mostly about “regular jane and joe” things like working for the weekend, finding strength with the loves of your life, starting up families, discovering hidden pasts of broken families. It all sounds nice enough, though rather quaint from my end – nowadays, the only family thing I have to worry about is whether my Martian great-grandkids will arrive in time for Earthen Equinox.