Clear And Present

One of the joys of the in car mp3 player in shuffle mode is those totally unexpected tracks thrown up on the journey to and from work. Last week, out of the digital ether, it filled the car with the sounds of Paperclip People...

Clear And Present

The car's speakers struggled with that bass but as soon as those synths jump in the rattle and distortion was overcome by the magnificence of Carl Craig's 1996 masterpiece, The Secret Tapes Of Dr. Eich (an album he revisited and remastered in 2012 which is where this version is from). Carl blurs the lines on the twelve tracks between the gritty bounce and thump of nightclub music, the more clinical, scientific world of Detroit techno and the propulsive good times of disco. On most of the tracks the techno wins. Dynamics and science fiction techno pushed to the edges that demands to be played loud- steam hisses of hi hat, glorious long synth chords, thumping drums, sub bass. 

Steam

In 1996 Carl Craig (dressed up as Paperclip People) released one of the best albums of the 1990s, The Secret Tapes Of Dr. Eich, twelve thunderous, funky, driving and intense slices of house/ techno from Detroit. That may put some people off and it shouldn't- there's nothing inaccessible about the album. Tucked away on side three, coming after the slipping and sliding magnificence of Throw, is Steam.

Steam

Steam is built around rhythms and sounds that would have been at home on an early 80s dancefloor in Sheffield or West Berlin (it's partly based on a sample from Steam Away by early 80s post- punk group The Flying Lizards, to be found on their 1981 album Fourth Wall, a record which travelled a long way to get to 90s Detroit). There's some underground industrial funk, tough drums and looped sounds, all retooled for the mid- 90s. The keyboard part that comes in is straight out of 70s Detroit, soul and funk. The Secret Tapes Of Dr. Eich was remastered in 2012 and still sounded utterly contemporary. It's all effortlessly brilliant. 

Basic Reshape

The flipside to sunshine drenched Italian Balearica is austere, minimal dub- techno from German duo Basic Channel. In 1995 Basic Channel (Moritz von Oswald and Mark Ernestus) put out a CD called BCD which compiled the series of 12" singles they'd released during the two previous years, a series of pioneering deep cuts. On the album was this- a six minute glide- by of bass, FX, insistent rhythm and heavy sounds- titled Remake (Basic Reshape). 

Remake (Basic Reshape)

Remake (Basic Reshape) originally saw the light of dawn under the name e2e4 Basic Reshape, a remix of Throw by Paperclip People (Carl Craig's brilliant dub- techno guise). Basic Channel remade Craig's track, which sampled Manuel Gottsching's minimalistic, hour long E2- E4 (the basis of yesterday's post, 1989's Sueño Latino). In doing so they pushed pushing Gottsching's 1984 album into new directions. Remake is a heavy duty, slow motion, bass led groove, a long way from the original and the '89 hit that sampled it. The melody has been filtered out and replaced with utterly absorbing layers of sounds. Dance music (for want of a better term) had a real sense of forward trajectory between '89 and '95, a constantly forward thinking form, the music of the future in the here and now. This still sounds futuristic. 

Oscilator

I was going to post some squealing guitars today but I had a text exchange with an old friend who mentioned the Jamie Xx album (see yesterday) and also that apparently Jamie's favourite album is Paperclip People's 1996 The Secret Tapes Of Dr. Eich. Paperclip People was an alias for Carl Craig, Detroit techno scientist and wizard. The Secret Tapes... is a twelve track dancefloor masterpiece- pure, streamlined, machine music. Being from Detroit it is also gritty and dark. It manages to be both minimal and big sounding. This one, Oscilator, begins with a siren blast on repeat, then the drums kick in and distorted bass hits. After that you get six minutes of modulating, oscilating synths that twist and turn things upside and down. Straight to the point dance music that sounded like the future in 1996 and still sounds modern now. I love the album cover too, the reel to reel tape recorder (a 2012 re-mastered, re-issue had updated artwork. you can buy it here).

Oscilator

Throw

This fourteen minute and forty second long single was a big hit round here when it was released back in 1994. Carl Craig, foremost of the second generation of Detroit techno artists, put it out under his Paperclip People name. It is premium quality machine funk techno, starting with a sound of man kicking an expensive bin and then building and building, doubling the rhythm, adding layers and sounds, with a couple of dropouts that are heartstoppingly exciting. Really good and not a second too long.

Throw