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.

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: "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.