Throwback 1989 || Orbital "Chime"

Largely a victim of "what have you done for me lately?" status, Orbital emerged at the turn of the 1990's as an instrumental dance duo to be reckoned with, and "Chime" was not only their entry point into crossover acceptance but also one of the grand compositional epics that cemented acid house/techno's imperative to be taken seriously.

Bearing all the upbeat, X-static hallmarks of underground club music of its day, "Chime" double down by demanding an exacting attention span: the song builds and builds to a near-10 minute climax in a different manner than most extended tracks of its day, which largely just consisted of repeating the main hook over and over, with just enough filler downtime to get dancers anticipating the reintroduction of the main theme. "Chime" took a slower simmering build that compounded rather than repeated itself, in a way that much anticipated trance (the drone-like German kind, not fucking Darude).

The result is an endlessly remixed classic whose staying power is not only attributable to its innate excellence but also its malleability: in spite of the sprawl this track was designed by birth to be torn down and built back up again in other DJ's images, from further acid house excursions to drum & bass, breakbeat and beyond.

Panda Bear: "Come To Your Senses [Danny L. Harle Remix]"

For some, this remix by PC Music's Danny L. Harle will conjure up unpleasant memories of early 90's rave, particularly the first two Prodigy albums. For the rest of us that recall the rave scene as generating some historically significant music and not just being an incessant series of "James Brown Is Dead" clones, this "Come To Your Senses" rework is a welcome panacea to the dominance of the moody, tone poem art scene that dominates modern electronic music. I enjoy a little cerebral techno as much as the next guy, but it sometimes seems like the dancefloor has been altogether ceded to the hip hop/top 40 community.

Matia Aguayo: "Levantate Diegor"

The conceit for "Levantate Diegors"'s video is paper thin - Matia Aguayo attempts to rouse a lethargic sidekick to the English refrain of "get up!" - but the music itself is anything but, an affectionate blend of techno and Tropicalia that brings to mind Mala, though rhythmically a bit more hard hitting.

Slackk: "Shogun Assassin"

This would have made an apropos inclusion to Quentin Tarantino's Kill Bill soundtrack, but it stands alone as a bombastic techno tune with a martial underscore.

Vitalic: "Stamina"

Hey, a hard hitting, peak hour club banger with absolutely no trace of bro wobble? Fuck's sake, I'd almost start to think there's life left in this here techno thing after all!

Head over to Urb for an exclusive, downloadable remix by Le Castle Vania.

Spector: "Never Fade Away" [Wolfgang Voight Remix]

Not familiar with these Spector cats - their debut album Enjoy It While It Lasts comes out Monday - but I dig what Kompakt honco Wolfgang Voight has done with their single, "Never Fade Away". Through the bouncy techno beat you can make out a new wave-y melody, and from the promo photo above these dudes look like a cross between Rick Astley and INXS. You know what? That could work.

The Presets: "Youth in Trouble"

I grow increasingly confused by these impossible-to-watch music videos even as I become more and more enamored of the songs behind them. In this case you wouldn't want to fuck with the snaky, mesmerizing bass groove at the heart of "Youth in Trouble" anyway, so if these visuals were intended as some kind of warning they're certainly superfluous.
(via The Color Awesome):

Jimmy Edgar: "Let Yrself Be"

Jimmy Edgar is back in that ass with this kinetic, epileptic-averse video for "Let Yrself Be", an otherwise agreeable (rather old school) tech-house heater from his extant Majenta LP. He's also a photographer if ya ain't heard. Give it up or turn it loose.

Perc: "A New Brutality"

No one has benefited from advances in cheap music technology more than electronic artists, but it often seems that the majority of house and techno producers are gravitating toward spacious, bubbling effervescence or narco-hazy downtempo gems. Perc isn't having that shit. "A New Brutality" steers clear of flat out industrial / EBM but the acid is smeared liberally over the pinging bassline like a flock of geese kissing an oncoming 747.

Digitalism: "A New Drug"

Digitalism is coming hard with their new tune, "A New Drug", one of six previously unreleased songs (+ two remixes) that will appear on the duo's DJ-Kicks mix CD. At 21 tracks total Digitalism obviously dominate the setlist, but in between showcasing their own goods they also insert jams by electronica-friendly pimps such as Whomadewho, Alex Gopher and the ubiquitous The Rapture. Full tracklist is here.

Erol Alkan & Boys Noize: "Roland Rat" / "Brain Storm"

Apparently these collaborations between Erol Alkan and Boys Noize are an annual meeting of the minds, at least they have been for the past three years. Both the a- and b-side from their latest single are both just sickeningly fantastic, the sort of artistic checks and balances that very rarely add up to the more than the sum of the collaborators' parts. Nothing atmospheric or trippy about either of these cuts, just straight skullfuck floor fillers.
(via Pretty Much Amazing)

Korallreven: "Sa Sa Samoa" [Elite Gymnastics Remix]

Perhaps a bit opportunistic with the prominent Whitney Houston sample, but Elite Gymnastics turn Korallreven's dream-tech "Sa Sa Samoa" into an old school rave throwback tune. The video is not much to speak of - another artsy found footage bouillabaisse, just what the planet needs - but the remix itself is worth cracking a glow stick over.


わめく▷ ⎛VISUAL⎠ from ELITE GYMNASTICS on Vimeo.

Slackk: "Polar Bear"

This appeals to my innate love of polar bears.  I won't even go to a zoo unless they got a coupl'a them muhfuckas.  Nowadays you can't even mention polar bears without someone associating them with global warming.  Which is sad... a polar bear is not an avatar for your sloganeering, he needs to be loved for the savage, inhuman killing machine that nature made him.  It'll take more than climate change to thaw his icy, bloodthirsty heart...

Oh, the song's kind chill though.

Pete Swanson: "Misery Beat"

Too many fucking blog entries/reviews start off talking about how apt the song title is to the mood of the track... no shit, ya think the artist might have intended that?

Pete Swanson is a member of PDX duo Yellow Swans and has a new solo album, Man With Potential, out now on Type Records and boy, if there's anybody that has serious potential it's this kid!  See what I did there?

I also hate when people say "see what I did there?"

Moby: "After" [iamamiwhoami remix]

Ah, Moby.  Is there anyone in the electronic music community who it's easier to hate?  After doing his part to put techno on the mainstream radar with 1999's classic Play, Mr. Richard Melville Hall went on a decade long tear, destroying all that goodwill by releasing album after album of cookie cutter, water treading pablum (to be fair, contemporaries Chemical Brothers and Crystal Method hardly fared any better in the 'aughts).

I'd love to be able to call 2011's Destroyed an artistic comeback, but it's mostly just more of that nothing-embarrassing-but-nothing-great-either succession of beige electronic pop tracks.  I suppose if you cared enough you could probably find a couple of songs that grow on you with repeat listens, but it doesn't take repeat listens to dig the fuck out of iamamiwhoami's stellar remix of "After".  For a summer-friendly, laid back jam it's unseasonably fantastic.

1990: "Tricky Disco", Tricky Disco

Tricky Disco is one of scores of pseudonyms used by spousal duo Lee Newman and Michael Wells (Greater Than One [industrial] and Church of Extacy [techno] are probably the two best known). "Tricky Disco" and its follow up, "House Fly", both landed on Warp Records before Newman and Wells got side tracked on lord knows what other projects... some of which we'll no doubt stumble upon by happenstance as this blog gets further into the 90s.

1990: "Aftermath", Nightmares on Wax

One of the clubbier tracks to drop on Warp in the early days was this follow up to Nightmares on Wax's 1989 hit, "Dextrous". "Aftermath" is too minimal and subdued to qualify as rave, but it did boast a formulaic house vocal refrain, which is a lot more of a nod to mainstream club culture than the label could be counted on for once the likes of Aphex Twin and Autechre started popping up.

Nightmares on Wax released an album in 1991 before falling off the face of the earth for a few years, finally returning in 1995 to re-establish themselves as a pivotal act in the trip hop scene.

[ed. note: ignore the "1991" in the YT vid title; I've verified through several sources that the original "Aftermath" single was released in 1990, though the track's appearance on the 1991 N.o.W. album A Word of Science: The First and Final Chapter may have resulted in the confusion.

Also, I'm beginning to think that Jarvis Cocker must have been Warp's house visual guy at the time.]

1990: "Testone", Sweet Exorcist

Another early Warp Records signing was Sweet Exorcist, a side project of Richard H. Kirk (Cabaret Voltaire). Kirk must have been funneling a large part of his talent into these side projects, because around this same time Cabaret Voltaire were just kicking off their acid house phase in truly anemic style; they'd rebound and establish legit credentials in the genre with 1992's Plasticity but, suffice to say, there will be no WKMR coverage of their 1990 elevator house opus Groovy, Laidback and Nasty.

By the way, the following clip was directed by Pulp's Jarvis Cocker. They must have met in a bar or something...

1990: "LFO", LFO

Though they would eventually become synonymous with the IDM genre, Warp Records started life in 1989 releasing rave-based club bangers with a slightly more cerebral edge, as noted on "LFO" by the eponymous Leeds duo of the same name. Comprised of Mark Bell and Gez Varley, LFO would go on to even greater fame as remix artists, with Bell also making a name for himself as one of the more sought after producers in the late 90s, when numerous pop and alternative acts got the techno bug and sought veteran DJs and engineers in the genre to assist them in "crossing over".

1990: "Psyche-Out (Version 1)", Meat Beat Manifesto

Forging a career out of identity crisis, the fact that UK native Jack Dangers has gotten away with straddling the boundaries of industrial, techno, dub, hip hop and just about any other dance related genre you could dream up - never entirely committing to any specific genre convention - for over two decades is a testament to the man's creativity and engineering skills.

99% was the third Meat Beat Manifesto album in two years, and the second of 1990 (though that same year's Armed Audio Warfare consisted of archival recordings intended for the group's first album in 1988). "Psyche-Out (Version 1)" is a remix of a 99% album cut via 12" single, and though fairly minimal - it was 1990, after all - one can cut through the acid house tropes and pick apart a number of contemporary influences: the emphasis on original vocals, which were not prominent at all (aside from samples) in the acid house / rave movement but did have a lot in common with industrial dance groups like My Life With the Thrill Kill Kult and KMFDM, or even the New Beat stylings of Lords of Acid; skeletal bass lines in an early Depeche Mode vein; a fairly sedate, almost swinging tempo, 100x removed from the frantic BPM wars of the techno genre, which was more in line with late 80s hip hop or even early 80s synth pop... the list goes on, as does the beat.