IDM Mailing Archive

I got a lot of mail on my subtropic mini-review. Lots of people responded to my query about other 'out there' D&B type stuff. The canonical list of 'crossover' or 'experimental' jungle so far is Guy Called Gerald Plaid (Clear EP particularly -- whoo boy!) Spring Heel Jack (not bought it yet, I can't buy everything ;-)) Gescom Jacob's Optical Staircase + 4Hero +-->both Dego projects, right? TPower and a few more slipping my mind. Funny no one mentioned either Goldie or the Hangable Auto Bulb. I'm interested in finding more on the more experimental tip. Some people felt I was dissing English D&B, and for that I apologize. That wasn't actually my intention. I've heard so much fairly ordinary, cliched jungle, which is what I was referring to. And there's a whole class of stuff (ragga, bhangra/jungle, gansta, more hardcore-oriented stuff) that is probably good on it's own terms, but does not, as Quakers say, 'speak to my condition.' And what is the deal with the Subtropic disk anyway? Who is Jake? Why was this apparently out in England long before the US, even though it's on Reflective out of San Francisco? For those of you who've got access to the Internet compilation Fusion 4, there's a really choice junglish track on that tape. --------------------------------------------------------------------- Home Page: http://I.m.too.dumb.to.hack.html/~kent Kent Williams kent@inav.net (319) 338 6053 (home) (319) 626 6700 x 219 (work) (319) 626 3489 (fax)

On Wed, 31 Jan 1996, Kent Williams wrote:

quoted 5 lines And what is the deal with the Subtropic disk anyway? Who is

> > And what is the deal with the Subtropic disk anyway? Who is > Jake? Why was this apparently out in England long before the US, > even though it's on Reflective out of San Francisco? >

I traveled from New York to San Francisco in Oct of 92 with Jake and the original members of the SPAZ crew in San Francisco. If you want to know about Jake's past - I could say that in England he was in a band called the Butterflies - him and Arron (SPAZ/Planet 6) played noisy, swirly, loud guitar in the band. They also squatted together and threw rave parties in England at the Vicarge (or something like that). I heard many of Jake's tracks that were done at that time period - done on a 4track with guitar, tr505, casio keyboard, and a 1sec delay - let me tell you he blew mind - I knew someday lots of people would be talking about him. When we first starting composing together - jake's stuff was very techno'y and IDM (I actually have lots of eariler stuff on a tape, for my listening pleasure :) ) I could tell Jake would eventually get into less 4 on floor stuff and head in more of a breakbeat direction. Jake could also roll a great spliff:) BTW I think the "Homebrew" album kicks ass and is very original - I do wish he changed the sounds up a bit. I thought alot of it sounded like remixes of the "wildcard EP" Still good shit though:) As for Reflective. Ya know Billee and Jonah from Reflective are English and they have a large distribution channel there and Jakes living there know so....put 2 and 2 together. I'm still waiting for Jonah to release some of my shit...he keeps promising:( Here's a plug for me. I'm Liquid Acrobat - check out my label Shakti Science - my 1st release is by Space Farm (me and Mr. Sunship) it's an arabic/techno thing - it's called Egyptology Vol. 1 Silent/Pulsoniq is distributing it. I also have my own web page at http://www.cea.edu/shakti Also, check out my new record on Surreal Sound out of Holland - it's with Planet 6 - totally crazy minimal techno. Only 500 were pressed so it my be hard to find. out liquid acrobat