Moritz Von Oswald & Mark Emestus: Main Street Records 1993 - 1999

Round Two - New Day (Dub) 1994

Round Two are Mark Emestus and Moritz Von Oswald who were also the legendary Basic Channel as well as Cyrus, Quadrant, Maurizio and Rhythm & Sound. While I have records and cds by all of those aforementioned groups I'm not really au fait with this moniker. I'm glad I looked into it today.

Round Three - Acting Crazy (Instrumental) 1995

Unmistakable Basic Channel-y sounds. 

Round Four - Found A Way 1998

Pure dub-tech gold! How do they do this trick? It almost dissipates into nothing right before your very ears and yet it still holds a rhythm albeit a rather mirage-like one. 

Round Five - Na Fe Throw Version 1999

Thick vibe man. I just noticed people arguing in the comments whether this should be played at 33 or 45. So I'm guessing all these side Bs are like all Basic Channel 12"ers which you can play at either speed depending on your mood.

Moritz Von Oswald Trio - Sounding Lines

WHAT'S ON THE HI-FI PART 42

MORITZ VON OSWALD TRIO - Sounding Lines
Always avoided Moritz Von Oswald Trio as I read somewhere that they were like a jazz trio. For some reason the words 'Jazz Trio' make me feel a little bit sick which is funny because I'm not averse to a bit of jazz. I guess jazz trio brings to mind trad sax, scatting, drum solos etc. Not the ultra minimal and restrained voyages into rhythm and occasional faint bits of dissonance that make up Sounding lines. I mean I haven't listened to jazz in a long time (apart from 70s Miles Davis) but I was once really into John Coltrane, Pharaoh Sanders, Don Cherry and John's Mrs Alice. MVO Trio only really get about as jazzy as Can ever did. Speaking of Can there is quite a Can-esque feel to many of these trax. Some of Sounding Lines evokes the less furious side of 70s era Miles. The best parts though are when Moritz conjures his own Basic Channel vibes with 90s German stylee dub influenced techno like on the fabulous epic opening tune Sounding Line 1. Sounding Line 4 is classic ambient dub-tech that could have come straight off BCD except it has real drums. Even Hauntology is invoked on Sounding Line 5 (Spectre) with it's dreamy library electronics and slight faux jazz soundz, I didn't even know what it was called when those thoughts crossed my mind until I looked at the track listing and thought 'uh huh! I'm onto something there.' After a bit of library-jazz-funk, a drum machine appears along with some gaseous squelches on Sounding Line 7 and causes a ripple of nostalgia that makes you wanna get out those old Basic Channel tunes. This is an incredibly enjoyable microbic beat odyssey, quite the little surprise then that I'm really glad I checked it out. I didn't think it was gonna be anywhere near as good as it is. I might even go back and check out their other albums.

*Conjures, evokes and invoked all in the same bloody paragraph! Jesus Christ! What's with that?

ROME - Rome
So while we're feeling 90s zones, here's one I gave a spin recently after finding all those 90s German cds due to the Mego reissue of General Magic & Pita's Fridge Trax Plus. Anyway Rome aren't German but American and this came out on Thrill Jockey. During that rummage I came across other er...post-rock from America such as Cul-De-Sac, Directions In Music, Ui, Jessamine, Labradford, Tortoise, Bowery Electric & Sabalon Glitz. This is the only one to get any airtime so far (can't bring myself to listen to one song wonders Tortoise) and it complements the MVO Trio record perfectly as Rome were also a trio and the most dub influenced US post-rock group. This 1996 release is the only Rome album who came and went in a flash. I have no idea what happened to them after this. Their self-titled cd is quite the underrated little gem though. This is something along the lines of dub applied to US underground noise, making it a one off artifact. The music here is closer to Cabaret Voltaire and PIL's post-punk dub gloom than say US post-rock or German dub-techno though. Even that's not really a fair comparison as Rome were really fucking original and unique. I once read an article on Kevin Martin's dub noise band Ice in Lime Lizard in the early 90s and Rome were more along the lines of what I thought Ice were going to sound like. I can't believe how well this shadowy experimental dub un-rock stands up today. This LP is a terrific ghostly haze. Rome is forgotten but should perhaps be unforgotten. Now I'm wondering if they had any other releases worth checking out...I'm sure they had a 12" that never crossed my path plus a tune on Macro Dub Infection 2, otherwise I think that was it. At least they didn't hang around too long and get boring.

*It turns out Rome is unforgotten as this album was posted on the I Hate The 90s blog a few hours ago which I came across after writing this post while searching for other Rome material. The blog confirms there was just another 12" called Beware The Soul Snatchers where Rome were reduced to a duo plus they had a tune on the compilation In Memoriam Gilles Delueze on Mille Plateaux from 1996, which I never tracked down despite it being highly regarded amongst Wire writers at the time. I would suggest downloading Rome's Rome LP from i-tunes though where it's available but the elusive 12" isn't. Perhaps that shall remain a mystery to me till my dying day.

**Ice: I ended up really loving them. Under The Skin (1993) is one of my favourite records from the 90s and Kevin Martin's duo with Justin K Broadrick, Techno Animal, had a really amazing double cd Re-Entry from 1995.

***Don't get me wrong DJed the one classic song from Tortoise is a top tune. Its just that nothing else they did was ever as good. I mean did we need a lounge version of Slint's Spiderland that was the first Tortoise LP? Millions.... was DJed with a bit of math-rock and 90s electronica filler  chucked in. Then, I dunno, wasn't TNT a muzak version of Steve Reich's Music For 18 Musicians? John McEntire from Tortoise did an incredible remix of Stereolab's Les Yper Yper Sound though, which featured on the choice 1996 Virgin compilation Monsters, Robots & Bugmen.

The mysterious Rome 12" eludes me.

Don't Touch That Stereo Part I

Millie & Andrea - Drop The Vowels (2014)
This is one of the dudes from Demdike Stare and some other bloke. For some reason I'm really enjoying this record which I didn't really expect to. I don't think anything much new is happening here. There a bit of post dubstep, some gamelan vibes, isolationist type ambience, a dose of Basic Channel, hardcore continuum styles, drum & bass pops its head up, tech-house (that was a thing wasn't it for a minute there in the 90s?) and I dunno it's all a bit zombie rave (that should so be a genre). Not really hands up in the air more like your arms fall off as you try to raise them above your waste. Is it undeconstructed or reconstuctured deconstruction or constructed unreconstruction? More to the point does anyone give a shit at this point? More nails in the coffin for rave in the best possible sense.

Clouds - Ghost System Rave (2013)
A bit late on this one. Ghost System Rave was only hipped to me in early January by Reynolds via Energy Flash. This is far and away the best album I missed last year, the only other contender being Holden's The Inheritors. It most certainly would have made my top 9. As far as album titles that describe their contents go this is perfection. Whilst the ingredients suggest the 90s, something pulls this away from mere retro-activity. Perhaps Future 1 is the only exception to that rule here as it soundz like an obscure 91 grimey 'ardcore gem that Blog To The Old Skool might have dug up. Ghost System Rave is not just techno micro-genres revisited. Its like you're hearing an early 90s rave through a ghost's ears. You feel like you've heard it before but you haven't, not like this. This is a delightfully askew musical experience. It sounds/feels like you've already dropped the drugs and you're occupying an inbetween dimension. This is an incredible musical achievement. Rave from the otherside. We just had Zombie Rave and now this is Ghost Rave.

The 90s Again....

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Brostep/The Zone Formerly Known As Dubstep

Here's the missing Knife Party song that I was shown due to my interest in Skrillex. I can't really remember what the rest of the post was about! Maybe how slow I am to catch on to such homegrown greatness. Hey I like Severed Heads! Anyway this is brostep right?

I was off the continuum for a while by the time Dubstep came along and hey I didn't dislike it like I did with 2-Step & Grime. Some Dubstep I thought was grouse. Then I was slightly confused by Burial's LP. Was it even Dubstep? How can something be the pinnacle of said genre if its barely even a dubstep record? 'Was Burial's debut all that?' I thought it sounded like you know Pole/Basic Channel/Chain Reaction kind of gear with a bit of Maxinquaye chucked in. Don't get me wrong I love all that stuff, a lot in fact. But how could Burial's version be a whole new thing?  It's not a bad record per se but was it groundbreaking? Or did I miss something?

Faceless Techno Bollocks

I am a big electronic music fan but I remember a couple of years ago saying I could never listen to proper bangin' techno again in my life.  That was a glitch in my taste best forgotten about.  Kraftwerk, Cabs, New Order etc. were still OK.  Bomb The Bass, MARRS & S'Express OK too.  Aphex, Seefeel, Boards of Canada, Mouse on Mars and other IDM artists were OK too.  It was the 'faceless Techno bollocks' I thought I could never listen to again like 'ardcore, gabba, jungle, bleep, trance, big beat or anything that was purely designed for you to go mental at a rave, warehouse party or er.. a club whilst under the influence of drugs.  Surely that was all nonsense and I was more mature now.  Last year however I watched the box set of the British sit com Spaced which was written by and starring Simon Pegg & Jessica Hynes.  There was a lot of techno music in the series as well as a character who was a raving bike courier.  In one episode they go to a club and dance to some moronic (in the best sense) tune.  The fun and excitement was captured so well it made me remember Raves fondly for the first time since well I was goin' to 'em.  FUN remember that!  It started slowly but I got out a Pole record and thought this is just repressed faceless techno bollocks- Paraplegic techno.  The real thing was comin' soon.  There was a bit of Basic Channel/Chain Reaction.  Then chillout ie. The Orb, Ultramarine, Global Communication, Woob etc.  LFO, Orbital, Biosphere, Polygon Window followed.  I couldn't believe I was listening to this stuff and loving it.  Then it was Joey Beltram, Marc Acardipane etc.  Next I trawled the net for Belgian hardcore comps  Then I was trackin' down Jungle mixes on podcasts from Woebot, Goldie....... there is a whole bunch of stuff I've never even heard which is waiting for my eardrums and feet in the future.  What a strange turn of events.