313 lines
15 KiB
Plaintext
313 lines
15 KiB
Plaintext
* A S S E M B L A G E * [ p a r t 3 ]
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1. R E C O R D R E V I E W S
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============================================
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AC = Andrew C Crosby <ndc@engin.umich.edu>
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RP = Russell A. Potter <rapotter@colby.edu>
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============================================
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Title: Berlin 1992: The Techno Sound of Berlin
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Arists: Various
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Label: Tresor/Novamute (dist. Tommy Boy)
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When I saw this record in a store, it struck me that it was the
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first record I had seen in a long time that had the word "Berlin"
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with no "West" before it. And, for those who have been wondering
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what's been happening musically in post-Wall, post-West Berlin, I
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can't think of ant better answer than this record. It was, after
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all, in West Germany in the late 60's and early 70's that the
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idea of original electronic popular music was born at the hands of
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kids like Edgar Froese, Klaus Schulze, and Roedelius, and it was
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there too that Kraftwerk first found an audience. The DJ's on
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this compilation were probably still in diapers in 1973 when
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Schulze's _Cyborg_ redefined electronic music, but they've learned
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a lot from him, and from other German electronic musicians.
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Unlike Belgian techno, which to my ears often sounds like the
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excited noises a five-year old who had come accross a digital
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keypad by accident would make, these Berlin DJ's make
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sophisticated electronic music with a full range of beats, pulses,
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samples, and waveforms -- not to mention machines. These guys are
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playing with a full deck, and it makes a difference.
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The cuts on this compilation are incredibly diverse; though they
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tend towards the moderate-to-trancey range of BPM's, there are
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harder and faster beats as well. What sets many of these cuts
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aside is their dense blend of melodic accents; for instance Cosmic
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Baby's "Cosmic Cubes," which takes a fairly standard beat and
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enriches with just the right amount of Schulze-like melodic
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arpeggios and accents, often running a sleek treble over a pulsing
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bass loop. For those who like a harder sound with phased cymbals
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a la Front 242, Vein Melter's "Hypnotized" offers that and more,
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giving a trancey feel over a relentless 138 BPM. Along the same
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lines, Futurhythm's "Phuture 2" works similar magic over a clashy
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industrial beat reminiscent of KMFDM. If house techno is more
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your style, Microglobe's "High On Hope" hooks you with housey
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piano and soul vocal samples, only to bust your mind open with
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incursions of high energy, culminating in a tour-de-force
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sequence of 120 BPM madness that changes its feel every thirty
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seconds or so. The gems of this collection, though, are the two
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long trancey mixes at the end, 3 Phase's "Open Your Mind" and
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Mindgear's "Don't Panic," which together clock in at just about
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eighteen minutes. Both feature long sequences of trance beats with
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weird little loopings of samples that keep you moving _and_ keep
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you guessing (shouldn't be rare, but is).
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All this says a lot for Tresor, which is both a club (located near
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the site of the Wall itself, in the basement of a what was (before
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the war) a department store) and a record label. This is (so far
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as I know) one of the first Tresor/Novamute records to be
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licensed domestically via Tommy Boy, and I hope there will be many
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more; a comp such as this would be worth $20, but it's great to be
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able to pick it up for $12.99 As taylor808 said earlier on the
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ne-raves list, "it's total trancey, acid, blipcore. I can't get
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enough of it . . . spacey, blippy perfektion." [RP]
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Title: Swamp
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Artist: Influid-1
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Label: Discomania (?)
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This track is really old, I suspect, having heard that it was on
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some MTV-Europe sampler or something. I like it though;
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the a-side is a pretty cool acid stomp, typical bubbly analogs
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with a KILLER intro sound... kind of a buzz that modulates on
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each beat. The first mix has the most variety; it changes style
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several times during the song.
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On the b: The track prohibition is really boring, a kind of funny
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sample of some guy saying 'women having sex with animals' but
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very predictable. The second mix of swamp is much more sparse
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than the first, fast and furious with that droning buzz all the
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way through . . . nice. Both versions feature samples from
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Flash Gordon ("Lower them into the swamp"), but not overused,
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very subtle. Cool. [AC]
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Title: Meltdown
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Artist: Radition
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Label: Radikal Records
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This came out over the end of the summer, sort of a trancey hardcore.
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Cool sounds mixed up with a fast beat; the crash mix is long and
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ok, though I like the intro on the other mix better; it starts out
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really slow and works into a frenzy. The other track, 'Help Me,'
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is ok too, but nothing spectacular; it sounds cool when you mix it
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with other stuff. [AC]
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Title: Acid Drill (remixes)
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Artist: Edwards & Armani
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Label: Music Man (?)
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Three mixes here, all of them pretty cool. It's hard acid stuff,
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original and nice and fast, featuring a guy yelling 'left right
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left right left right left,' which sounds sorta military, but
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remains feisty and hard. The sounds on this aren't your typical
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analog bubble, way cool. [AC]
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Artist: Lords of Acid
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Title: I Must Increase My Bust (remixes)
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Label: Caroline
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The Lords are at it again, and this maxi-single, clocking in at over 44
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bust-expanding minutes, is definitely worth it. There is _some_ filler
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(a "Noise Mix" and "Distortion Mix" that basically sound like some other
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person playing around with LOA effects), and two nearly indistinguishable
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dub mixes ("DD Vocal Dub" and "The Lords Like 'em Large Mix"). But the
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real star of this disk is the "'Rock-n-Rave' mix", which extends the cut to
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over seven minutes of coolly acidic sounds, switching from one breakbeat
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to another and boldly going into sonic universes where the Lords had not
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gone before (this remix is credited to Mark Picchiotti and Terri
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Bristol). The LOA were always in danger of being a sort of one-noise act,
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but this cut shows what can be done with their underlying beat and a slim
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core of guitar. The other outstanding mix is the Plus-8/Richie Hawtin
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"Detroit Hardcore Mix," which again completely revamps the sound, peeling
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back the relentless LOA fuzz and substituting an old-school, spacey
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techno sound reminiscent of early Detroit scene acts like Cybotron.
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All in all, a pretty good disk, though some chains seem to be regarding
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this as a virtual EP and are charging as much as $9.99 for it. Let's hope
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that LOA keep experimenting in this vein, or that if they don't, that
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they'll let others keep on making remixes like these. Maybe LOA should
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make like Psychic TV and just let rave DJ's remix everything on their
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albums (as with PTV's _Beyond Thee Infinite Beat_)... we'll just have to
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wait and see. [RP]
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Title: World 2 World
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Artist: Underground Resistance
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Label: Underground Resistance
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Wow!! The acid jazz sound from Nation 2 Nation returns; this is a way
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cool ep. It opens with "Amazon, " a slightly tribalish number that has a cool
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chord progression and builds with a beat that comes and goes twice.
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Other tracks are "Cosmic Traveller," a nice housey space jam with a cool
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chime sample. "Jupiter Jazz" features a funky analog bassline with little
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wispy solos done with a sound I can't really describe, a high-pitched
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tone that twists yer head around. The last track has a kind of acidic
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feel to it, very trancey, with cool samples of a female vocal and analog
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blips coming and going. The whole ep has a very organic, earthy feel to
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it, samples of water and stuff I think help. Excellent. [AC]
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Title: Seawolf, Kamikaze, Belgian Resistance
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Artist: World Power Alliance
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Label: Underground Resistance
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Basically another subproject of the UR people, these tracks were all
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released as single 12"s with one song on one side, and a little manifesto
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pressed into the other side, talking about techno unity and stuff like
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that.
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Seawolf: WAY AWESOME ACID BLEEPER: driving hard beat, with little
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submarine-like blips fading in and out and then ambient whirrs and grinds
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forcing their way through.
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Kamikaze: has samples from a WWII documentary -- ok, but not great.
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The sound of the airplane crashdiving is cool, but the track doesn't
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have enough substance or anything profoundly new.
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Belgian Resistance: I like this, a warm bassline with a heavy beat and
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feel, with little scrape/whirr sounds coming in and out, very acidic.
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Pretty good overall.
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My main complaint is that these three tracks were all released separately.
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This would have made an awesome EP, but instead makes a cool single and
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two merely ok singles. At $5 a pop (and a lot more for those in other
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countries), it just isn't worth it to only get one song each, in my opinion.The
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back plate pressed with the message on the vinyl is cute, but useless. I read
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it once and don't care anymore; I can't play it, so what's the point? [AC]
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Title: Sysex EP
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Label: Plus 8
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This ep (on green vinyl) opens with "Intro,'" a long analog improv
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that is pretty cool but not that listenable (or useful from a dj perspective).
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World Domination is great; it builds from intro into a throbbing hardcore
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acid track, with grindy analog ringing bouncing all over the place.
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"Intruder" is my favorite track, with a fast hard analog beat and a cool
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melody made from a 'bomp' kind of sound, hard and cool. The b
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features three more tracks: an ambient bleepy thing with no beat,
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and two others that are ok. Didn't grab me, but then i haven't listened
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to it enough for them to really grow on me, as plus 8 stuff often does.
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Mind buggin 909 just seemed a little empty; anyone could program
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a 909 to do this, what's the point of it?
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Overall, if you like the really hard plus 8 stuff then this is quite a
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buy; otherwise, it may be a bit too sparse and distorted. [AC]
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Title: Life at the Wunderbar
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Artist: C.Y.B.E.R.F.U.N.K.
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Label: Radikal Records
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Despite their name, C.Y.B.E.R.F.U.N.K. is not very funky. Like many other
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Belgian techno acts on Radikal, they use a lot of that "BLEEEP BLEEP" sound.
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Both the beats and samples are relatively unimaginative; particularly
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annoying is the relentless "police whistle" sound. "Part 2" is virtually
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identical with "Part 1," except for a whispering voice that intones "no
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revolution" (there's certainly nothing revolutionary in _this_ mix!). The
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CD contains no other tracks or remixes, making this disk a real waste of
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money no matter how you cut it. Radikal seems to have a very good
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distribution network in the U.S.; too bad they don't have much good music
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to distribute (how many times can you hear "O Fortuna" before you get
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sick of it?) [RP]
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Title: Circuit Breaker EP
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Label: Probe
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Take a drum machine and pipe it through an array of distortion filters.
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WHAMMO this is really cool. My significant other gave it a thumbs
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down at first, as she felt that it sounded like it was recorded improperly
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or something, with a fuzzy, muted feel. it may be a learned taste, so I
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can't totally recommend this to everyone -- but it sounds great to those
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who like incredibly hard stuff, and it is very new and unusual sounding.
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The entire ep is made of three tracks, each made from rhythms that are
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distorted to the core. [AC]
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======================================================================
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2. R A V E R E V I E W S
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======================================================================
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Halloween Review :
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This past Saturday, there was a wonderfully crowded MasquaRave for
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Halloween at a warehouse in Greensboro, NC. The site was within view of the
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downtown scape on a misty night, and along the downtown's central road,
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Market.
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We brought some jackolanterns, and left them by the side entrance as a
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crowd toy. Inside was a large well-lit foyer. Beyond, in the gloom,
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one passed the entrance to a huge dark area and proceeded up a concrete
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ramp into the sparkle of an intellabeam.
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On this second level, all to the left, was a warehouse/woodpile stage for
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the spinners, flanked by speaker towers, two more intellabeams, and two
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smokies. Into the space and left, were people in costume mingling about the
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ramp railing, two more speaker towers, and on back to a stairwell, bathrooms,
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a chill-out room, and drinks sales room.
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This early in the night the lights were held low, as people filtered onto
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the central floor, lit sporadically by glowsticks, false vampire teeth, and
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blinking bicycle safety lights. As the evening progressed, it KICKED
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into high gear; at midnight the DJ simply fitted the groove and SLID !
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Unfortunately, there were several early technical errors. Twice or so a
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dancer bumped into just the right spot of the "stage" to skip the beats,
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wrongly skip I'll say as they were fun-skipping along normally. Then the
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WORST occurred...power--sound and main lights--went down for what seemed an
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eternity, but which was probably three minutes. The crowd was more than
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helpful, filling in the gap with wild hoots, patterns of whistling, some
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continuing dance moves, and some house-clapping. We all knew they were busting
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their butts behind the scenes to get it going again. The only downside was that
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this pause occurred twice more in the evening.
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Several people were drinking or NO2ing, but most seemed to simply be
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sampling, not sloshing, so the scene stuck well all throughout the
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night...
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For the Most Incredible Surprise-Its-Cool-Afterall Award, they played a
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clear stanza from an easily recognizable pop diva ( was it Samanta
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Fox?--they blur). Just enough to make you think, "rave's Over, go home NOW!"
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Then they syncopated the beat of that song with some other beats and that
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was the end of your worries. That set of beats went SO hard, SO broken, and
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SO long that we knew the DJ just HAD to be dying!! THAT was true break beat
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to the max! They should be congratulated, and they were!!
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An old friend of mine said that she was singing that night,
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but...unbeleivable for this scene. Well, I stood corrected when, at 3 AM,
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Nichol meshed her voice with the DJ-beats, backlit by yet another
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intellabeam. This Rave was Planned And Executed!!!
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Even the 3AM announcement was coy : "there is a police line just up the
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road, but it has nothing to do with us. And the wonderful lot owners have
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opted to allow everyone to exit out of the back of the parking lot.....or you
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could just stay here and party with us somemore....heh-heh... ;-) "
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And as seven o'clock approached with the last song, the last two hundred
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continued to jam and hug in the misty dawn filtered through heavy ceiling
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windows.
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--Peace, h.e.
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hansel-dude (henders@eos.ncsu.edu)
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[END of *ASSEMBLAGE* 1.1]
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