Barada (Bryan Zentz) and, of all people, Mark Farina, have put out some good aciieeeed in the last couple of years. Mark of course is much better known for his downtempo DJing and tracks, but he can really mix just about anything in the right situation.
As long as I've known Mark, I've only seen him *play* a real acid set once -- here in Portland, must have been about 1995. He made notes bounce off different walls, collide and fall onto the speakers, do barrel rolls over the dance floor. In other words, just what you want a top-shelf acid house set to be. He's a great DJ, and I'm not criticizing -- just wish he had the inclination and the audience to do it more often. The audience thing is the hard part these days -- the cultural context for acid is long gone and the austerity of the sound doesn't lend itself to the current ear which is tuned to overproduced, overbusy house and flat, affectless techno. Acid house on a really big sound system is an experience like no other. The records just aren't the same at all, even when I crank up my decently sized practice system. I play a lot of acieeed anyway, even the cheesier stuff. At the peak of the west coast acid boom in 1992 my friend M used to say, "they're playing that damn 'rocket ships' track again," but you know, it always sounds great anyway . . . And now that I have a 303 I can play along . . . :) -- fred
