INTELLIGENT DANCE MUSIC TIMES VOLUME TWO ISSUE EIGHT
** The Domestic Issue **
This is timely, as I've noticed a thread on idm lately concerning the
difficulty some people are having in tracking down decent music in the
United States. I just want to put the lie to the notion that it's
impossible to get the music you want here in the US. All the titles
reviewed in this issue can be purchased at my local Tower Records and
with the exception of the last two, they are all on US labels. And
one final plug (yet again) - EarRational Music is on the net and they
can get almost all of the titles reviewed in IDM Times, usually for a
few dollars less than you'd pay in a store. What this all boils down
to is simple: if you can't find good music, you're not trying hard
enough.
Plastikman: Sheet One
Novamute NMCD 3105
1:45 Dre
126 11:00 Plasticity
95 5:38 Gak
0:34 Okx
138 6:30 Helikopter
128 8:19 Glob
122 11:19 Plasticine
128 4:10 Koma
2:07 Vokx
128 6:42 Smak
2:14 Ovokx
Now this is what I call acid trance. I personally find it hard to
zone out to most of what is called "trance" these days, as it usually
tends to overemphasize the thudding kick drum. Enter Richie Hawtin
(the guy responsible for FUSE), with a quietly disquieting variety of
acid trance for this album. Tracks like "Plasticity" and "Plasticine"
are perfect examples - minimal drum programming and squelching 303
patterns that go on and on and on, subtly evolving over the course of
many minutes until your brain is helplessly throbbing and resonating
in time with the analog blurp. Most of the songs barely qualify even
to be called songs, they're just ideas that fade in and fade out again
when the track is over, but somehow that doesn't seem to matter. This
is not something you'd want to put on and listen to in the foreground
but it's quite excellent for trancing out. Soon to replace meditation
as Zen Buddhism's method of choice for inducing trance states.
Juno Reactor: Transmissions
Novamute NMCD 3016
131 6:32 High Energy Protons
138 6:26 The Heavens
135 9:00 Luna-tic
135 5:53 Contact
135 8:38 Acid Moon
129 5:55 10,000 Miles
133 8:04 Laughing Gas
136 6:43 Man To Ray
8:40 Landing
This is a fantastic album of high energy techno. Although most of the
tracks are uptempo, this is definitely not hardcore - neither is it
standard Euro-trance. I'm left grasping for labels, which is always a
good thing. As the group's title suggests, there are tons of warm
Roland analog textures. Bolstered by nicely chosen samples, mind
bending programming tricks, and sparkling clean production, this is
better at being both dance music *and* listening music than many of
the current highly touted "electronic listening" albums. (Warp, are
you paying attention? Shame on you!) Just about everything connects:
from the stomp of the opener, to the acoustic guitar samples of
"10,000 Miles" to the masterful ambience of "Landing". This is a
solid work - well worth your time.
Lisa Carbon and Friends: Experimental Post Techno Swing
Sonic SNC 2025-2
110 8:30 Swing Me Machine
129 7:45 Opto Freestyle Swing
82 6:50 La Costa Rica Cyber-Salsa
90 4:50 Take Another Five
120 7:00 Acoustic Megawhat Groovology
155 5:30 The Only Virtual Computer Jazz
151 5:30 En Realidad Virtual
132 7:55 Fancy Loopy and Drugfree
87 8:20 Sounds Like Preset Rhythm
The Recipe: take some heavily swung, spastic drum machine beats
(sounds like an 808 programmed by an escaped mental patient on crack)
and add some fucked up space jazz synth noodling on top. Sounds
weird? You bet it is, and I LOVE IT! The tracks don't tend to
develop too much, instead the noodling gets freakier and the synths
get tweakier until eventually it all collapses. "Costa Rica
Cyber-Salsa" has a sampled salsa piano riff over which demented synth
plinks burble like... uh... well, analogy fails me at this point.
Let's just say that it's *unique*. The occasional use of actual jazz
samples underneath the computer mayhem just makes it cooler. This
does for techno what that jazz rap stuff did for hip hop, only even
better. Negatives? Well, eventually the incessant synth wanking does
get a bit tiresome, and perhaps we didn't need a full hour of this
stuff, but with a little judicious CD programming you can fix that
problem.
Rising High Trance Injection
Instinct EX 265-2
140 6:07 Perry & Rhodan: The Beat Just Goes Straight On And On
125 7:53 OBX: Eternal Prayer
135 3:37 Influx: vs 128
135 8:28 RD1: Eclipse
156 6:10 Escape 3: Escape To Neptune
132 9:16 Transform: Transformations (irresistible force mix)
136 7:30 Syzygy: Organik
145 4:51 Influx: Tiny Green Spots
128 8:37 Tranquilizer: Tranquilizer
129 7:32 Balil: Parasight
117 10:46 Syzygy: Discovery
117 18:20 Dreamfish: School Of Fish
136 6:47 Sequential: Everything Is Under Control
129 10:51 New London School Of Electronics: Voices Of The Rainforest
130 15:30 The Irresistible Force: Flying High
8:14 Cybertrax: Drifting (Through The Galaxy)
This should end, once and for all, the mistaken notion that US record
labels just don't know anything about dance music. "Rising High
Trance Injection" is quite a feather in the cap for Instinct Records -
they have done a stellar job at gathering European product and
repackaging it for the US market. This double CD compilation contains
two 70-minute discs crammed full of excellent trance selections from
the Rising High label, and it retails for under $20. Put that in your
pipe and smoke it. Or better still, pop this in your CD player and
space out. Disc 1 is more on the hard trance edge, with some deep
techno grooves and some straight pounders, whereas Disc 2 is much
prettier and more ambient. It's nice to see both sides of the trance
coin represented in one package.
My only complaint would be the inclusion of the Dreamfish and
Irresistible Force tracks on disc 2 as both of them are rather long
and the albums from which they are taken are out on Instinct already
anyway. But hey, as I said before, tons of good music, great price -
you can't go wrong. Big thumbs up, Instinct... oh, and a final nod
for picking the less-common Irresistible Force mix of
"Transformations" rather than the tired original!
The Higher Intelligence Agency: Colourform
Beyond Records RBADCD5
92 6:19 Delta
119 7:34 Speedlearn (empathy mix)
120 6:20 Influx
98 6:40 Spectral
112 5:45 Conoid Tone
100 9:15 Orange
1:20 M+T=E
107 6:01 Re-echo
125 9:27 Ketamine Entity (axiom mix)
Quite how they came to call this sort of music "ambient dub" baffles
me. It's neither ambient nor particularly dubby. I'm not sure I have
a better term for it, but maybe I could come up with something if they
asked. Anyway, whatever you choose call it, this disc is a brilliant
example of the genre. Full of tripped out liquid synth textures,
obscure vocalisings and slowly crashing drum breaks, HIA really know
how to work the spacy groove. "Orange" is a particularly good
example: subsonic bass drum gently thudding away in the background,
blasts of white noise wash, a highly processed vocal sample and some
relaxed acidic synth squiggles. It comes and goes like a dream -
you're not sure what really happened until long after it has finished.
Get into it now!
Bandulu: Phaze In-Version
Infonet INFSCD 12
136 8:47 Phaze In-Version
133 7:53 Downward Glance
120 8:09 Day Four
And we end the Domestic Issue with an item that is only available on
import. But that's OK, because it's not mind blowingly wonderful.
The title track, in particular, is quite boring - minimal percussion
and a sort of windy synth noise that changes very little over the
course of its 8.5 minutes. Fortunately, "Downward Glance" and "Day
Four" both manage a little more development. Overall this is
reminiscent of Black Dog Productions, which might be a recommendation
for some, but unhappily for me, I'm not a big Black Dog fan, so this
comparison doesn't excite me too much. On the other hand (I think
we're back to the original hand now), I find this single more
listenable than typical BD stuff. So, I guess in my own convoluted
way I'm trying to say that this is OK Detroit-influenced techno with
an unmistakeable British edge. Decent but unspectacular.
Jon Drukman jdrukman%dlsun87@oracle.com
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This calls for a very special blend of psychology and extreme violence.