I’ve spent the last two weeks or thereabouts listening to Trance Atlantic 2 & Trance Europe Express 5, but I can’t really find any tracks that are particularly notable to be honest. Good music to mop the floors by or to carry pieces of furniture around the house to, but nothing stands out as all that interesting. TA2 was a good introductory showpiece of Chicago & latter Detroit, but on reflection kind of dated. TEX5 has a bunch of good artists, but again nothing stands out for me. That said, if anyone is interested in any of the tracks listed, let me know and I’ll post them at some point in the future.
Anyway, in my previous Trance posts, I made the same offer and in lieu of tracks from either of the aforementioned I’ve posted the requested tracks from the posted volumes.
In no particular order, and with as little editorial input from me as I don’t want to cloud anyone’s potential enjoyment of something they have never previously heard.
Underworld - Dark Hard : Possibly a variation of Dark & Long, but as with various other Underworld tracks of the time, the remixes can be quite extrapolated from the original. It does appear on a Japanese only CD Single for Dark & Long, so there is some potential proof.
A Guy Called Gerald - When You Touch Me : I think this might be the track that replaced the cursed Voodoo Rage when Gerald’s groundbreaking Black Secret Technology was reissued without that aforementioned track, although the track on BST was called Touch Me and seems to have a different running time. I can’t check as I have only the first version of the album, anyone else care to comment?
And there you go, I think this covers all of the tracks requested previously, but if I’ve missed your request off let me know and I’ll endeavour to resolve this.
And after Trance Atlantic comes Trance Europe Express 4, logically enough. I think I’ve found this one to be the most enjoyable when listening again to it after so many years, there are a lot of great tracks here ranging from well known artists such as LFO and Underworld, pseudonyms for folk such as Baby Ford or Laurent Garnier and one offs such as Future Perfect. As with the other discs in the set, if anyone wants to hear something other than what I’ve posted, leave a note and I’ll do soon shortly.
Fluke - Synth Bit : I have a long stood fondness for Fluke, this doesn’t make as much use of the understated vocals I enjoy from their tracks, but this is unmistakably Fluke.
The Chemical Brothers - Life Is Sweet (Delik 1) : Delik 1 was the working title for Life Is Sweet, according to the guy that left a comment at discogs.
Hex - Homunculus : From early Ninjatune contributors, and responsible for an early favourite electronic album with Digital Love.
Miss DJax - Groovy Bitch : An extremely raucous workout from Saskia Slegers, the proprietress of the Netherlands’ DJax records.
Skylab vs Deluxe - Twister : And at the opposite side of the scale from the aforementioned, a deeply ambient workout from Skylab vs Twister.
As suggested by the last few tracks of Trance Europe Express 3, the next volume in this set looks slightly further to the west with Trance Atlantic. And, as with the previous few, let me know if there’s anything you might want to hear from the set.
Dan Curtin - Round Trip : Some wonderfully inventive wobbly synths & backwards samples.
Mark Gage - Rex Me Fecu : Previously mentioned as being responsible for the great Gravitiational Arch of 10/IO, I think this shares some DNA with the aforementioned with that strung out synth sound.
Mike Dearborn - Atmosphere 16 : Compared to most of the European stuff, the US tracks have a cleaner, purer sound which makes the UK/USA techno divide all the more obvious. Although not a million miles from Hardfloor, this has a more restrained edge that Harthouse doesn’t show.
Plastikman - Hump : Richie Hawtin doesn’t really need any introduction, so you’re not getting one. That said, I’m not entirely familiar with his output, but this seems remarkably restrained for something I would have expected from him.
Hawke - I Have Her : aka Gavin Hardkiss, one third of Hardkiss. See also Little Wing & God Within for excursions from Scott & Robbie, but their masterwork has to be The Phoenix in all of it’s variations.
Infiniti - Martians At Work : Juan Atkins needs even less of an introduction than Richie Hawtin.
Trance Atlantic items on ebay, note that there was a free CD from Ministry of Sound at one time. And talking of Ministry of Sound, since when did the like of Jamiroquai belong on a Chill Out album? Humbug.
I am beginning to regret disposing of the booklets that came with the series now, as I’m now genuinely curious about the writing that accompanied Trance Europe Express 3, but they’re lost to time.
The same disclaimer as parts one and two applies, so if you want to hear anything in the list that I haven’t uploaded let me know and I’ll post those at a later date.
Trance Europe Express 3 opens with Air Liquide - Chromoplastic, a shuffling slice of German Techno with a slightly scary conspiracy theory diatribe of the sort I would have expected to hear from David Icke, but I don’t think it’s him.
A bit later on the disc comes Kinesthesia - Lave Trader, a track with a title that confounded me for a while as I couldn’t think what lave was. After some confusion and bewilderment, I’ve remember that Lave Station is where you start in the computer game ‘Elite’, and with trading as a partial focus of the same, I’m fairly sure that’s where the inspiration for the track name comes from. Doubly so now that I’ve checked discogs and see that it’s a Cylob project.
Immediately afterward, (and I guess this sector of the disc is the Rephlex part) is µ-Ziq - Roy Castle, a trumpetastic tribute to the recently lost record breaker. This is quickly followed by the Aphex Twin alias Caustic Window with the charmingly named Cunt. The juxtaposition of these two tracks always disturbed me somewhat.
Disc two is fairly mellow in comparison, although Big Foot by the Grid could be a knock off of their own Swamp Thing, but the outstanding track on this compilation has to be Biosphere - The Third Planet which is just a lovely piece. Biosphere came to media attention by supplying the soundtrack to a Levi’s commercial directed by Michael Gondry which is a re-enactment of the Condom/Pharmacist’s daughter Urban Legend.
Geir Jenssen followed this potential commercial goldmine by climbing up some mountains for a couple of years.
And finally, Emergency Broadcast Network - 3:78, which haunts my memory at times when I somehow expect to turn to a digital clock and and see it reading 3:78. Emergency Broadcast Network are from the US, and as I seem to remember reading in the booklet at the time it suggests that the next Trance release wouldn’t be focussed primarily on Europe next time around…
For some reason, this was the first volume of Trance Europe Express I bought, which is odd as I would have thought the prospect of The Orb, Orbital et al. on the first one would have been pull enough to hook me into making a purchase, but I guess I flipped a coin or something for it.
Full details are over at discogs, and as with Part 1, I’ll post any other tracks requested after a week, but for now the tracks that stood out to me at the time are the ones following.
The Irresistible Force - Lotus Position : the Trance moniker at this point in time encompasses more than the Tiestoesque bullshit it evolved into, this track is a lovely, mellow ambient workout. This set in general is quite downtempo/ambient/whatever compared to the others as may be evidenced by the other selections. That said, the end of disc is a double header of Hardfloor & The Ambush, neither of which are particularly ambient. Hardfloor in particular produced some fantastic music for workouts, as well as the downtempo Dadamnphreaknoizphunk stuff, but I’m off on a tangent in mentioning this.
Salt Tank - Dreams : I really liked the vocals and piano stabs of this back then, but I’m not sure about it these days. Salt Tank produced a remix of Duran Duran - Girls On Film, which is a bit odd.
Eat Static - Element 115 : I don’t know what to call this, crustechno perhaps? Somewhere to categorise Eat Static, Astralasia & Ozric Tentacles’ dancier works. I’m kind of giving the first disc short shrift as I really want to move on to the second disc.
Disc two opens with FFWD - Lucky Saddle : FFWD was a project involving Robert Fripp, Thomas Felhmann, Kris Weston & Dr. Alex Paterson, and an album followed on the short lived Inter-modo label along with Autocreation who were also featured on this volume. This was intended as an ambient Supergroup of sorts as Felhmann was not a permanent member of The Orb at this time, but Kris Weston (aka Thrash) was. Now I don’t know if anyone reading this has encountered Thrash on the Internet, but I have to advise you to avoid doing so where possible. I was on a mailing list that he was invited to post on, and he was an horrible troll, and it seems that he goes out of his way to cause trouble.
Anyway, immediately following this is another excessively ambient track by Robin Rimbaud aka Scanner - Safety. This track is composed primarily of samples derived from scans of telephone conversation and listening in to sources such as the emergency services open bandwidth. This meets the criteria for disturbing and creepy for this volume quite adequately.
Which brings us to The New London School of Electronics - The Frenchman. Produced in part by the late lamented Caspar Pound, I remembered this as quite good, but on listening again after 15 years I was entertained by the ambient noodlings of the first 3 minutes or so, but the second half of the track is a crashing monster of what I guess we should call big beat or something, but with nods to acid house and dub, it’s not fair to classify it as such.
For those of you unaware of the Trance Europe Express series of albums, it was a spin-off of sorts from the Volume series. Volume was a CD magazine which collected tracks from various artists on the Indie side of things and came with a nice booklet talking about those involved. After a few Volumes, Trance Europe Express was born; a double CD with a big book of nice photos and band articles. As I mentioned previously, I didn’t keep the booklets themselves for reasons I can’t quite fathom to this day, but my younger self wasn’t all that great at making decisions.
Anyway, I digress somewhat. The Volume/Trance was the brainchild of one Rob Deacon, a real visionary and someone without whom we would be musically much poorer. Rob tragically died last year in a canoeing accident.
It would be churlish to go through every track on these volumes, so I’ll just mention a few of the tracks that I remember particularly well, starting with Bandulu - Gravity Pull. I’ve always thought of Bandulu as a fairly under appreciated band for some reason, they didn’t seem to garner the attention they should have attracted. Their album, Guidance, is a wonderful piece of early Techno that still sounds as fresh to this day.
Previous to Trance Europe Express, I wasn’t particularly familiar with the output of Psychic TV. After hearing Billie Ray Martin singing Persuasion (in particular the line following that which makes up the title of this post), I found myself with little desire to follow up on his works due to the possibility of them sounding ever so slightly ridiculous. That and a friend with suspicious taste in music liked them, so that was an immediate red flag. Billie Ray Martin & Spooky are both excellent performers, but this track creeped me out like no other.
030 - Midnight In Europe : I’m not entirely sure why this one stuck in my mind. Maybe the sample or the beeps, not sure. Johnny Klimek, who makes up part of this combo is notable for a couple of reasons. Firstly, he seemed to be a Paul Van Dyk associate which is good or bad depending on your viewpoint, and secondly he was partly responsible for the soundtrack to Lola Rennt, one of Germany’s more successful recent movies.
Source - Kind of Magic : By all accounts this is fairly forgettable paint by numbers trance, but somehow it stuck to me for a few years. It’s not even particularly good in retrospect. Moody Boyz - Glitch is still pretty awesome, Tony Thorpe was way ahead of his time and a great choice as the KLF’s remixer at the time. I seem to remember reading that he remixed Amy Wino recently in a dubstep fashion, but that might have been one of my weird dreams again.
The Drum Club - Follow The Sun : I’ve always been hot for The Drum Club for some reason.
Anyway, this post is open for a week if anyone wants to hear anything from this volume, just leave a post and I’ll upload any requested tracks. Obviously I won’t be responding to requests for the full album in flac, but there are other outlets for that sort of thing.
Right, Warehouse Raves 7. The long journey is almost over.
First up, Felix - Don’t You Want Me (Hooj Mix), which I’ve recently posted so I don’t really have much more to say.
DSK Holdin’ On : This track I don’t remember too well, only their previous output for Boys Own, the track What Would We Do? which was remixed by Steve Silk Hurley. I was going to comment that it seemed somewhat anachronistic at the time as I thought he had kind of disappeared after his early house output, but I’ve been reminded he was more of a Garage producer and kept plugging away in that field.
Sine - I Like It Deep : I’m sure you do, love. You also seem to like photocopying Sugar Daddy.
Finitribe - Forevergreen (Forevermost Excellent Mix) : I’ve been trying for a while to find a decent version of this track, as the versions I have are usually edits. This is a move in the right direction, but still ejects most of the vocals which I think are the highpoint of the track. I feel this is such an under appreciated track, the vocals are integral to it, but most of the remixes eschew that in favour of the rhythm.
Rachel Wallace - Tell Me Why (Acorn Arts Mix) : Not too bad early prog house era, but needs to be marked down for the pocket keyring humanoid noises.
Nush - Nush : Not really sure what to say about this, it evokes early house reasonably well in it’s first minute or so, and then follows up with a rave piano stab, but it’s fairly forgettable unfortunately.
Peter Bouncer - So Here I Am : A follow up of sorts to Raving I’m Raving, I guess. I don’t know if SUAD were kind of hoping for something more successful/commercial with this, as it seems to hint at Derek Went Mad but it’s a bit weak, IMO.
Hyper Go Go - High : One part Strings of Life & One Part Gat Decor. Shaken not stirred.
Seventh Sense - Get The Music (Himalayan Dub) : I’ve listened to this a few times trying to find something to say about it. I can’t think of anything.
Messiah - Temple Of Dreams : Messiah performed a PA as part of a Radio One roadshow when I used to live in Glasgow, the same place was previously host to the Pope as part of his roadshow. I doubt the pope looked as good in bacofoil as the young blonde girl miming along to the samples involved in this track.
Ragga Twins featuring Junior Reid - Shine Eye : Junior Reid is probably best known for his appearance on the Clangers inspired Scottish Soup Dragons’ indie dance floor botherer I’m Free.
I used to be^W^W^Wam a trainspotter level nerd when it comes to music and radio phone-ins, I once had a Suburban Base coach type jacket that I won as a result of such things from Radio 1, but it seems I was perceived as too nerdy for such a thing in the eyes of the locals and one of the local neds stole it from the cloakroom when I worked for Safeway.
I used to rather enjoy radio phone ins as it was a quick way of winning stuff, one time I won a big bag of goodies from Radio 1 and in that was the Manic Street Preachers’s first album, which I didn’t much care for and sold for a fiver or so.
It was signed by all of the band members.
If you’re interested, there’s a copy of this CD on ebay, although it is 17 quid and maybe not quite worth that. On the other hand, I’m selling a bunch of Wii software.
Now that I’ve jettisoned all of my previous readers (that is, those folk embedding these tracks on their myspace page), perhaps it’s a good time to reintroduce myself.
Hello!
I’ll be your captain for the next click. I am reasonably fluent in rave, techno, Bubble Bobble, Java, Alan Moore, Becks, Amiga Workbench and Glaswegian. The previous incarnation of this site, audio.out, was originally intended as a waste of my time while dodging work and focused mainly on early 90s rave/house/techno music with the odd diversion that didn’t quite fit that criteria. That will still form the spine of this place but I’ve always wanted to diversify it a bit, so I’ve dropped the audio prefix.
Regular readers may be aware that I slogged through the Deep Heat & Warehouse Raves series last year, but never did find the time to fully complete that process. In an exercise I’ll call getting things done, please find attached a few tracks from Warehouse Raves 6.
First up on this compilation is Kicks Like A Mule - The Bouncer (Housequake Mix), a charming little ditty released on the Rebel MC’s Tribal Bass imprint, oddly enough one half of Kicks Like a Mule runs the XL record label, responsible for a great deal of output that I’ve previously covered and will likely touch on again. Anyway, this track made it into the Top 10 in the UK, and is probably the most remembered track on this compilation, although maybe not the most identifiable, but more on that later.
Following this is M&M - Don’t Stand In My Way (Remix), which starts off excellently in a fashion not too detached from the sort of music that I would have expected to play during the opening sequence of a Thalamus C64 shoot em up, but slowly degrades into fairly standard female vocals & rave pianos.
Following this I have to make a confession regarding these compilations, it’s that I haven’t been able to find copies of every one easily, so I have turned to alternative sources to find or compile them in some cases. This has mostly worked if I’ve had a CD Single with the correct mix of something, but sometimes this fails, and it is at this point it’s become most apparent. Out of the following six tracks, three I cannot find at all and two I’m not certain I have quite the correct mix. However, if not even the Internet can turn up your track, then I’m not certain it was worth remembering in the first place. C-Bounce - Keep The Faith (Friday Mix), Mystique - Fire and Haywire - Something For Your Mind (Brandy & Bongos Mix) have eluded me so far, so I can’t comment on them. I suspect the Haywire track makes judicious usage of the acapella from C’hantal - The Realm though.
DJ Tamsin - It’s Easy (Mandelbrot Mix) lifts an out of tune chunk of Richie Rich’s Salsa House (or samples from the same source as that track) and isn’t all that notable otherwise. Phase II - Reachin’ (Original Brotherhood Mix) seems out of place somehow as I could have sworn it was from a couple of years previous and not 91/92, but I dunno for sure. Anyway, this is a nice piece of House that seems quite out of place with the peers on this set. Next up is Pascal’s Bongo Massive - Pére Cochon (I Like It), a track I’ve not been able to find a definitive version of despite having other Bongo Massive tracks somewhere, so another no comment for this.
Into the endgame now, with LFO - Tan Ta Ra (Moby Remix) which was posted a couple of months ago as part of a Moby piece and this leads into Industrial - The Future, which I could swear is using the same drum sample as the other forgettable tracks from earlier.
The next track is the one alluded to earlier as the arguably most recognisable, it’s Rofo - Rofo’s Theme, a pivotal track in the Hitman & Her, used pretty much every time Pete cut away to the drunken swell of the nightclub denizens of Sheffield whooping and jeering at Michaela Strachan.
Yesterday saw the posting of Shut Up & Dance - The Green Man, so no real need to post it again, but as with most Shut Up and Dance stuff it’s really in a class of it’s own.
Following this is M-D-Emm - Get Down (Hardcore Ravers Mix), a hodge-podge of rave samples from Mark Ryder, also responsible for Undercover Movement from volume 5 of this set. I previously posted a newer version of that track, but I’ve since found the mix that was on Warehouse Raves 5.
Finally an artist I’ve posted a few times in the past, Acen - Close Your Eyes (XXX Mix), again no introduction needed and one of the tracks on this compilation that matured reasonably well.
I think I’ve finished messing around for now. I need to get rid of the wallpapery backdrop and I’ll be satisfied, but it can wait as I’ve been more concerned with the technical detail as opposed to the look, and I’ve rebuilt another blog setup for my wife that I’ve been avoiding doing for a while, so it’s been a busy day full of caching fun and shouting.
Anyway, a fuller post on Warehouse Raves 6 will follow within the next few days but until then here’s a taster from Shut Up & Dance - The Green Man.
The Warehouse Raves series ended with volume 8, by this time the series had changed name to the slightly more generic Warehouse 8. Unfortunately trying to find this final volume proves to be somewhat tricky due to the Dave Matthews Band releasing a series of bootleg/live CDs called live at Warehouse 8. Perhaps someday I’ll actually get round to talking about that one, but in the meantime I might as well pick up where I left off last year with this series, so today I turn to Warehouse Raves 5. I had intended to come to this one day, but just didn’t find the time.
First up, and needing no introduction Nomad (ft. MC Mikee Freedom) - I Wanna Give You Devotion. Supposedly based on Ten City’s Devotion, but I’ve never really noticed the match between the two tracks.
Secondly, another anthem of the time that doesn’t really need me to say anything about it, but I’m going to ramble over the front of the track much like an uninvited stranger who turns up before your dinner. Originally a track that may have been indirectly responsible for a million mashups, this takes a Candi Staton vocals and layers it carefully over the bassline from Frankie Knuckles ft. Jamie Principle - Your Love. I am of course talking about The Source - You Got The Love. It’s presented here in the Erens bootleg variety, but I’ve also included the less common Morning Time remix by the very lovely Olimax.
This is followed by fairly forgettable tunes from DJ’s Rule with Get Into The Music which is just weak and very out of date, Oval Emotion with Go Go which is fairly dreadful filler with Marshall Jefferson samples. Orchestra JB follows with Come Alive sampling Madonna’s Justify My Love. As a general observation by this point a lot of the content is nothing more than filler, and the next track, Baby Doll House - What’s Up is proving this theory due it’s general terribleness. I’m not even sure what sort of sound this is trying to acheive, weak flutey bollocks. And speaking of flutes, B.D.J. & Warriors 6.1.0. Welcome (Big Flute) is one flute away from Secchi - Flute On, which is about the only Flute House track I remember liking.
Continuing with the task in hand, next is Greed - Give Me (The Quadrant Remix) which seems to make liberal use of Lost - The Gonzo (more of this later) and Kariya - Baby Let Me Love You For Tonight, a classic house track from around the same time.
Tuff Little Unit - Join The Future has a sound that I’ve always identified with early Warp releases, the rubbery sub bass sound that I could have sworn was given out with every contract for the label, or lived in the water there. The other highlight of this disc is the aforementioned The Gonzo, named after my favourite muppet, samples “Hey, We want some Pussy” and has an awesome 90s rave breakdown.
The final two tracks are both great for different reasons, Undercover Movement’s - Moonstompin’ which is a great piece of early Drum ‘n’ Bass and Indo Tribe - In The Mind Of A Child (First Born Mix) is a Future Sound of London pseudonym.
