I just thought I'd review some of the stuff I bought over
Christmas...These are mostly the major releases and
from 1995.
De-Magnetized a Compilation Of Magnetic North Records (dbl
CD)
The Magnetic North label had been going until 1994 an in its
two year long life managed 15 releases some of which are
featured on this almost two hour compilation. The main
artist featured is the notorious Dave Clarke under guises as
Directional Force (the Peel Session has also just been
released) and under the name of Grapite. All in all 8 of
the tracks are acredited to Dave and most of them are
stunners. The style is dance-floor, and the beats tend to
be fast. 303 workouts by Woody McBride play out the first
disc with a 13 minute stunner and the second disc shows how
fast techno can get. Christian Vogel appears to know how
fast his drum machine will go, and Russ Gabriel shows how
intelligence and dance-floor techno can converge all under
the Pseudoname of VCF. All in all a good retrospective of a
label that was underground in it own respect and did have
degrees of sucess and failure. Not for the easy listening
pile. The only draw backs to the album was the rather
annoying vocal samples looped on both of the DJ Hell tracks.
Generally a good compilation and it does grow on you.
Serius A Tresor Compilation.
This is the latest compilation from the German Tresor label
that seems to have released tracks by nearly all of the
Detriot artists. Jeff Mills starts the compilation with a
short track that cuts deep the harder detriot sound and then
we have an all cast list featuring Eddie Flashing Fowlkes in
top form, Model 500 with an excellent cut, Robert Hood
gets funky need I say more. If you like detriot techno then
this is for you.
Fresh Emissions and Audio Emissions Output Compilation.
Also a double CD this features Artists known mainly for
previous releases on Andrew Weatheralls new label(s). Being
starts the ball roling, slowly however at first, definately
a hint of intelligence and ambience both his tracks lasting
in excess of 10 minutes, Vermin have the next to tracks
which totally devistated me, there is a resemblance to lots
of different artists not many of which i'm able to place,
but there's definately a hint of something different. I
haven't heard of Vermin before buit i definately want to
hear of them again. Then comes a track by Bishop wierd
title-killer track, finally the first CD ends with a dub out
techno/intelligent type beat track. The second CD is
reminicent of the Emissions Echoic stuff, alot of LO-Fi as
the cd starts With Conemelt. I saw there album a few days
ago which looked as lo-fi as i've seen of any Techno so far.
The produce some interesting sounds but to begin with I
wasn't all too impressed. Panash have the next two tracks
which revive the spirit of the first excellent disc,
especially a track called Five-minutes of wierdness. Uriel
have the following two tracks and they display the seventies
style funk of starsky and Hutch type cop shows can be
created by computers anbd synths...i wasn't too keen of the
tacky-ness of the Uriel tracks. Then comes a track by two
lone swordsmen, yep Andy Weatherall on a lo-fi type kick
interesting track. All in all a worthwhile investment.
JellyTones by Ken Ishii,
I've never reviewed this so I thought I'd like to as it was
my album of the year (excluding compilations). Great first
track Extra....also single of the year (IMO) Ken Ishii shows
his versitilaty by doing Jungle stuff, Heavy beated
intelligence and delicate ambient-esque techno, a must.
I got a load more stuff but thats all i can be bothered to
review. If anyones got any furter info on Vermin I'd like
to hear it.
Bye for now,
Nick.