Chapter Six
Feed Your Head
21 records, in the order the book names them
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001
Waremouse
2 Bad Mice
The crisp, echoed breakbeat and keyboard vamp on ‘Seers + Sale’ recalls 2 Bad Mice classics like ‘Waremouse’, except that the riff sounds like it’s played on a church organ, so the effect is eldritch rather than E-lated.
Moving Shadowtrack Open ↗ YouTube -
002
Nort Route
Balil
Carl Craig, the producer behind Innerzone Orchestra, clearly recognized The Black Dog as kindred spirits in sonic watercolours; in 1992 his Planet E label released their classic Balil track ‘Nort Route’.
Planet Etrack Open ↗ YouTube -
003
Analogue Bubblebath
AFX
James immediately won acclaim with the cosmic-jacuzzi swirl of ‘Analogue Bubblebath’, the title track of his 1991 debut EP. With its fluttery, diaphanous riff-pattern and hazy-yet-crystalline production, ‘Bubblebath’ announced a new softcore direction in techno – meditational, melodically-intricate and ambient-tinged.
Mighty Force; TVT, 1994track Open ↗ YouTube -
004
Selected Ambient Works, 85 – 92
Aphex Twin
James’s debut album, Selected Ambient Works, 85 – 92 is tilted towards softcore.
R&Salbum Open ↗ YouTube -
005
Quoth
Polygon Window
The stand-out track, ‘Quoth’ features no melody, no synths, no bass even, just frenzied metallic percussion.
Warp/Wax Trax/TVTtrack Open ↗ YouTube -
006
Sueno Latino
Sueno Latino
There was music too, dubbed New Age house or ambient house: Sueno Latino’s ‘Sueno Latino’ (a dance version of acid-rocker Manuel Gottsching’s proto-techno masterpiece E2 – E4), 808 State’s ‘Pacific State’, The Grid’s ‘Floatation’, Quadrophenia’s ‘Paradise’, Audio One’s ‘Journeys Into Rhythm’, Innocence’s ‘Natural Thing’ (featuring a sample from Pink Floyd’s ‘Shine On You Crazy Diamond’).
Expanded Musictrack Open ↗ YouTube -
007
Pacific State
808 State
There was music too, dubbed New Age house or ambient house: Sueno Latino’s ‘Sueno Latino’ (a dance version of acid-rocker Manuel Gottsching’s proto-techno masterpiece E2 – E4), 808 State’s ‘Pacific State’, The Grid’s ‘Floatation’, Quadrophenia’s ‘Paradise’, Audio One’s ‘Journeys Into Rhythm’, Innocence’s ‘Natural Thing’ (featuring a sample from Pink Floyd’s ‘Shine On You Crazy Diamond’).
ZTTtrack Open ↗ YouTube -
008
Paradise
Sven Vath
There was music too, dubbed New Age house or ambient house: Sueno Latino’s ‘Sueno Latino’ (a dance version of acid-rocker Manuel Gottsching’s proto-techno masterpiece E2 – E4), 808 State’s ‘Pacific State’, The Grid’s ‘Floatation’, Quadrophenia’s ‘Paradise’, Audio One’s ‘Journeys Into Rhythm’, Innocence’s ‘Natural Thing’ (featuring a sample from Pink Floyd’s ‘Shine On You Crazy Diamond’).
Eye Q/Warnersalbum Open ↗ YouTube -
009
Adventures Beyond The Ultraworld
The Orb
When The Orb’s debut album Adventures Beyond The Ultraworld finally materialized in the spring of 1991, it seemed monumentally tardy: the magnum (and I mean whopping – it was a 110 minute long dubble-elpee) opus of a clubland fad long past its sell-by date.
album Open ↗ YouTube -
010
Blue Room
The Orb
It was preceded by a single, ‘Blue Room’, which got to Number Eight in the hit parade, despite being just under forty minutes long and featuring only one real hook: ‘ah wah wah a wah wah’, the wordless siren-song of reggae vocalist Aisha, the protégé of UK dub wizard the Mad Professor.
track Open ↗ YouTube -
011
Assassin
The Orb
After ‘Blue Room’, they scored another big hit with ‘Assassin’, an uncharacteristically uptempo onslaught of tribal house rhythms and quicksilver, scimitar-flashing riffs.
track Open ↗ YouTube -
012
Live 93
The Orb
The following year saw Live 93, a double-CD/quadruple-LP that recalled The Grateful Dead in the way that The Orb improvised wildly around a core of pre-recorded sequences.
Island Red Labelalbum Open ↗ YouTube -
013
Selected Ambient Works Volume II
Aphex Twin
Breaking with the then dominant notion of the ambient album as a capsule of pastoral tranquillity, Selected Ambient Works Volume II returned to Brian Eno’s original neutral definition in the sleevenotes of On Land, where he envisioned ambience simply as ‘environmental music’.
Warp; Sirealbum Open ↗ YouTube -
014
Texturology
Beaumont Hannant
Hence Beaumont Hannant’s series of ‘Tastes and Textures’ EPs and album Texturology.
both GPRalbum Open ↗ YouTube -
015
It’s A Fine Day
Opus III
On Orbital’s second, eponymous album, ‘Halcyon + On + On’ takes the wordless, ‘la di da la di dee’ vocal hook from Opus III’s New Age House anthem ‘It’s A Fine Day’, and modulates it on the sampling keyboard – reversing and chopping it up, then resequencing it into a series of overlapping and intertwined loops.
PWL Internationaltrack Open ↗ YouTube -
016
Papua New Guinea
Future Sound of London
And their other chart smash, FSOL’s ‘Papua New Guinea’ was a sumptuous, gorgeously emotional rave anthem; it sampled the sublime aria-like tones of mystic-diva Lisa Gerrard from Dead Can Dance, and even used a breakbeat.
Jumpin' & Pumpin'track Open ↗ YouTube -
017
Lifeforms
Future Sound of London
In 1994, they released their second album, Lifeforms, a double-CD magnum opus.
Virginalbum Open ↗ YouTube -
018
Acid Pandemonium
Mundo Muzique
Presaged by late 1991 tracks like Mundo Muzique’s ‘Acid Pandemonium’, the Roland 303 resurgence really exploded a year later with Hardfloor’s ‘Hardtrance Acperience’, which sold 30,000 in Britain alone.
R&Strack Open ↗ YouTube -
019
Hardtrance Acperience
Hardfloor
Presaged by late 1991 tracks like Mundo Muzique’s ‘Acid Pandemonium’, the Roland 303 resurgence really exploded a year later with Hardfloor’s ‘Hardtrance Acperience’, which sold 30,000 in Britain alone.
track Open ↗ YouTube -
020
Are Am Eye
Commander Tom
At its coldly compulsive best – Arpeggiators’ ‘Freedom of Expression’, Trope’s ‘Amphetamine’, Commander Tom’s ‘Are Am Eye’ and ‘Dark Eyes’ – trance exhilarates.
Noomtrack Open ↗ YouTube -
021
Tales From a Danceographic Ocean
Jam & Spoon
‘Stella’ appeared on a 1992 EP titled ‘Tales From a Danceographic Ocean’ EP – a tongue-in-cheek nod to Yes’s Tales From Topographic Oceans, prog rock’s noodly nadir.
R&Strack Open ↗ YouTube
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