| -----Original Message----- | From: Mike Taylor [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] | Sent: 29 August 2001 18:17 | | Hello, | | I have been getting into ambient techno and early 90's UK IDM | lately. I am looking for more obscure material from that | period and I was wondering what recommendations you guys | would have.
I was in love with that sound back in the day and have been rediscovering a lot of it myself, lately. Here are some recommendations: - Anything on Likemind Records Likemind was a label that put out some Kirk Degorgio, B12 and Stasis stuff as well as more obscure artists like Nuron and Fugue. There were four Likemind releases (I've got 2, 3 and 4), all of which are brilliant if you're into that sort of sound. - Anything on B Twelve Records Before B12 released their album ElectroSoma on Warp, they were mucking about with their own label and put out their own stuff as well as Stasis (Stasis really are the unsung heroes of early-90s UK idm, but more later) and a few others. Slightly rare, but I hear rumblings that some have been discovered floating around in the last six months or so. - Anything by Stasis Stasis put out a good few EPs on Peacefrog, B Twelve, Likemind and ART; pick up as many as you can find. Also recorded an EP on Peacefrog as Other World Collective called "Artificial World" - get that on sight! And the LP, of course. - Black Dog Productions EP on Rising High This came out in 1992 with the tracks "Flux", "Pillars and Mirrors" and "Otaku". This is my favourite Black Dog release, with "Otaku" being my favourite track. At the time I was a really massive fan of good, futuristic, synth strings in these sorts of idm tracks, and this EP was on almost continual play! - Trainer, the Plaid compilation Someone's already mentioned this - get it. Especially for tracks like "Choke and Fly", "The Whirling of Spirits", "Fly Wings" and "Nort Route" which are pretty hard to get elsewhere. - Deep Sleep EP by Ken Ishii on Apollo Ken Ishii put his own two cents into the ambient techno scene with this very otherworldly ep on Apollo (I still have an Apollo t-shirt, come to think of it - I was quite a big Apollo fan); in many ways this ep comes closest to providing a definition for the term "ambient techno", because despite being beatless it stayed very, very far away from the usual hippy sorts of sentiments many ambient records had at the time. - Any of the old Future Sound of London stuff on Jumpin and Pumpin Particularly the Pulse EPs and "Intelligent Communication" by Principles of Motion; they were hyper-prolific during this phase and were churning out very polished, exciting idm sort of stuff while also releasing tracks for the UK rave dancefloor as Smart Systems and other names. - A Collection of Short Stories by Reload You probably know about this, but it's worth getting if only for the track "Le Soleil et la Mer" (lots of the other ones are good too, but the more abrasive tracks are a bit distracting). Once you have that hunt down the EP on which Black Dog remix "Le Soleil..." - the original track is amazing, but once the Black Dog go to work on it it'll practically reduce you to tears! - The Four Cornered Room by Luke Slater on GPR I really like this album, to be honest. It's very atmospheric, sometimes pacey but never hectic, and times very effective on an emotional level (more so than his second album on GPR). Incidentally, anything else you see on GPR is worth getting - they released lots of early Black Dog and other good ambient techno generally. - Flourescence EP by Space Time Continuum I think this was the first STC release; if you don't like STC's later output, don't be put off from this EP. Whenever I played it out at ambient clubs back then trainspotters would flock to the decks (it had this novelty holographic label which made it visually distinctive as well). Best use of a 303 in an ambient track can be found on here; this EP really takes me back! - Second Earth by Quark, on Mucho Vinyl Really obscure but amazing EP from Matt Buggins which is reviewed here: http://cdr.sine.com/cdr/article.cfm?id=245 It's sad, but I could blabber on about this sort of stuff for far too long... Brendan --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
