Spasmolytic was released in 1991 as a CD single by Capitol Records. Released shortly after the album Too Dark Park, this contains two alternate remixes of “Spasmolytic” and “Shore Lined Poison”, as well as live versions of “Harsh Stone White” from VIVIsectVI and “Walking On Ice” (from I’m not sure what). This CD was my introduction to industrial music, no question about it. People sing along to songs, sure, but Skinny Puppy was the band that made me sing along to movie samples. Every song is a highlight here, from the title track, which actually ends with some lyrics from the song “Rash Reflection”: “spoiled putty in the master’s hand”. I don’t see too much difference between the remix of “Shore Lined Poison” and the remix here, but I do like the climax of what sounds like police sirens and burglary alarms. That will definitely fuck your ears up if you play it too loud on headphones, like me. For the record, the wild cover artwork was done by a Vancouver-based artist called I, Braineater, who I believe also did the artwork for Too Dark Park, Last Rights, and various other singles around that time period.

Tracklisting:
1 Spasmolytic (Remix) (7:18)
2 Shore Lined Poison (Remix) (4:28)
3 Harsh Stone White (Live In Denver) (4:53)
4 Walking On Ice (Live Excerpts – S.F. – Dallas – O.K.C.) (11:58)

Skinny Puppy – Spasmolytic (remix)

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Skinny Puppy – Shore Lined Poison (remix)

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Skinny Puppy – Harsh Stone White (live)

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This is a pretty old CD and I have not heard it in probably 12 years. It was the first electronic music CD I ever owned and I’m not quite sure what happened to it; I probably lost it in college or had it stolen from me. Who knows. I first heard of this CD, of all places, at a dance at my high school because the DJ played some techno song and when I asked what it was, he showed me the CD. It had that cool looking old-school rave art on the cover and I bought the CD the next week. Funny story: before getting into electronic music, I listened almost exclusively to heavy metal, and my foster parents’ total hatred of the band Slayer led to them taking away all of my CDs for about 4 years, which I finally got back after my first year of college. After a year or so (1995, maybe?), I requested that my caseworker at least return Psychotrance because it had “no words”. The caseworker agreed to listen to it and finally returned it to me. Pretty weak, eh? This first volume of Psychotrance was mixed by none other than Mr. C, one of the leaders of one of the all-time cheesiest (yet still catchy for some reason) techno bands of all time, The Shamen. Seriously, look at some of The Shamen’s old videos on YouTube. You’ll want to rip your eyeballs out. Moonshine beat the shit out of this series, releasing 9 Psychotrance volumes in 10 years; subsequent ones were mixed by Darren Emerson (ex-Underworld), DJ Brian (see previous post), D:Fuse, and some other dudes I never heard of. I can’t speak for any of the other releases, but I bet the Darren Emerson one, Psychotrance 2, is pretty good as well. Oh yeah, and the download has two bonus tracks that aren’t on the CD and are untitled. I have no idea where they came from, but the person I got it from on Soulseek had them out of order, so I had to fix it so the mix worked right. If anyone can identify those two tracks, let me know. Tracks 4 & 5 might be out of order, so just swap them when you download it.

Tracklisting:
1 Union Jack / Lollipop Man (6:08)
2 Somnambulist / Nightflyte (3:25)
3 Terminator/Benelux* / The Warrant (2:50)
4 Megalon / Sorcerer (5:09)
5 Baruka / Play It Loud (4:35)
6 Red 1* / Xeno Ero (4:10)
7 Megalon / Darkness (7:06)
8 Razor’s Edge / Sleepless (4:30)
9 Baby Doc & The Dentist / Catalan Rising (3:25)
10 Underground Science / Photosynthesis (3:23)
11 Keoki & High & Lonesome Soundsystem, The* / Take It (5:19)
12 Lazonby* / Sacred Cycles (5:31)
13 Krypto / Sierra Nevada (5:11)
14 Hyperspace / Europa (5:37)
15 Nüw Idol / Wü Maze (5:00)

Terminator/Benelux – The Warrant

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Hyperspace – Europa

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Mr C. – Psychotrance Bonus 2

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The first of two back-to-back posts from Moonshine Music, which is a Hollywood-based techno label. While most of their releases are shit, back in the mid to late 90s, this label was huge. Volume 2 of the Hardesertrance series was released in 1997 and all three were mixed by DJ Brian. Now, unfortunately, I know next to nothing about DJ Brian (real name: Brian Golub, not to be confused with the Broadway performer of the same name). Brian has a couple of projects under the name Enspiral (a song of which is included on this mix) and, more recently, Seed. As Seed, he has released some stuff as recent as 2006 for a California label called Ritual Sounds. The Seed stuff appears to be mostly breaks and progressive house, so I highly doubt it would be my thing. Brian also was at the helm for the release Psychotrance 2002 (see the next post). I never heard the other Hardesertrance CDs, but I can tell you that back in the late 90s at the start of my raving days, this album was the shit and we used to pretend that we were at some fuckin desert rave at 7 AM while listening to this CD. As one of the audio samples below, I’ve provided a track on the mix from Sandra Collins, not only because it’s a pretty decent song, but also because she is very hot. Why not.

Tracklisting:
1 Sonic Fusion / Emotions (6:47)
2 System 7 / Ring Of Fire (Troniq & Volcaniq Mixes) (3:57)
3 Electronic Home Entertainment / Earth’s Last Defense Part 1 (4:39)
4 L.S.G. / Train Of Thought 1.2 (5:53)
5 Rotortype / Be Yourself (Original Mix) (4:24)
6 E-Razor / India (5:59)
7 Sandra Collins / Red (6:22)
8 Astralasia / One Fine Day (Quirk Mix) (2:29)
9 Albion / Air (Palefield Mountain Remix) (7:14)
10 Slacker / Psychout (5:41)
11 Enspiral / Let It Go (6:57)
12 Amoeba Assassin Rollercoaster / (Listen And Feel Live Mix) (7:26)

System 7 – Ring Of Fire (Troniq & Volcaniq Mixes)

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Sandra Collins – Red

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Astralasia – One Fine Day

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Over the years, I often wondered what had become of Crop Circles, a goa trance project active in the mid-90s and a collaboration between Etnica and Lotus Omega. In 1996 and 1997, Crop Circles released two 12″ singles, Full Mental Jackpot and Lunar Civilization, along with a handful of remixes on compilation appearances. It was around this time also that Etnica’s side-project Pleiadians was becoming somewhat popular and it seemed natural that a Crop Circles full-length album would be released. Time went on and this never happened and I began to lose hope in it. The Internet informed me that there was an album due to be released in 1998, but the label, Auracle Recordings, went bankrupt. Or there was a hard drive / DAT failure. One or both were the cause. Then suddenly, from the depths of history, sprung from nowhere, comes the mythical Crop Circles full-length album Tetrahedron. 11 years later, DAT Records, an Italian label has made Tetrahedron available in all its glory and a lost piece of psychedelic trance history has been found again. Containing unreleased tracks and exclusive remixes, it’s hard to say for certain whether this was as the album was originally supposed to be, or what, but it does not matter. It is pleasing news to any long time fan of the trance genre and excellent news to be had. The embedded audio below are the title tracks for both of the original vinyl releases.

Tracklisting:
1 Lunar Civilization [Pleiadians Remix] (10:47)
2 Antonomasia [Lotus Omega Remix] (9:36)
3 Daffy Duck [On The Comet] (10:01)
4 Cerealogy (10:22)
5 Pentagon (9:03)
6 Classic Process [Hale-Bopp] (9:14)
7 Full Mental Jackpot [Etnica Remix II] (9:28)
8 No More Singles (10:21)

Crop Circles – Full Mental Jackpot

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Crop Circles – Lunar Civilization

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– Lunar Civilization / Full Mental Jackpot

– Tetrahedron

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Phillipe Laurent is an artist, musician, and designer who hails from France. I was first introduced to his music by several tracks that appear on the bootleg Flexipop compilations, namely None Night Of Flexipop Vol. 1 and The New Wave Complex – Volume 1. While there is barely any information about him online (and most of what I came up with is in French), it appears that he does not do much in the way of music anymore, preferring to focus his attention on art works at various galleries. Unfortunately, as near as I can tell, Faste Occidental is the only full-length release by him, but what a release. Two discs of experimental / ambient / classical music along with a bonus disc of remixes. The pure classical pieces in between some of the tracks make for a nice change of pace and give a truly grand, epic feel to the whole album. In digging up more information, there were a series of tracks on various cassette releases throughout the 80s. In addition to that, he has at least two releases under the name Hot Bip, more information of which can be found on Myspace. Beware, the couple copies I found of this CD online are really expensive.

Tracklisting:
Glorification De L’Electricite
1-01 Anthologie Poétique
1-02 Tzara Twist
1-03 Manifeste Électrique
1-04 Suite Pour Cordes Et Machines
1-05 Quartette De La Première Sécession
1-06 La Dictature Du Carré
1-07 Polyptique Constructiviste
1-08 Orthodoxie Futuriste
1-09 Construction Cinétique
1-10 Der Blaue Reiter
1-11 Intonarumori
1-12 Splendeur Géométrique
1-13 Mobilier Simple Pour Un Sanatorium
1-14 Miniature Rythmique
1-15 Implication Thématique
1-16 Défilé Avec Cors
1-17 Divertimento Lugubre
1-18 Apologie De Socrate
Danses Europeennes Non-Ethniques
2-01 Apologie De Socrate (Version Cavalière)
2-02 Divertimento Lugubre (Version Fin De Siècle)
2-03 Suite Pour Cordes Et Machines (Version Plébéienne)
2-04 La Dictature Du Carré (Version Hot-Bip)
2-05 Polyptique Constructiviste (Version En Trompe-L’Oeil)
2-06 Apologie De Socrate (Versions Sans Conséquence Apparente)

Philippe Laurent – Manifeste Électrique

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Philippe Laurent – Suite Pour Cordes Et Machines

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Philippe Laurent – Orthodoxie Futuriste

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Philippe Laurent – Divertimento Lugubre

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Philippe Laurent – Polyptique Constructiviste (Version En Trompe-L’Oeil)

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On Acid Too is the newest album (to my knowledge) by former Click Click frontman Adrian Smith as Paperhouse. Lore has it that work began on Paperhouse material after Click Click briefly reunited to produce the album Shadowblack in 1997. Now, for the record, this particular release is NOT the same as the one listed on Discogs under his real name. For one, this has almost twice as many tracks, and also, if you look at the top left of the image here, there’s a wee little “A.S.” logo, which is not present on this copy. Also, it actually says Paperhouse on the spine. Anyway, there are 4 other Paperhouse releases that are known, but self-distributed by Adrian. I do not know what the deal with this is, and why he does not have a record deal for it. However, if you are familar with Click Click and/or like dark experimental techno, then this release is for you. Also, the actual CD-R release contains 16 tracks, but sigloxx has contributed two alternate songs that nicely round out this album, bringing the track count up to 18: a longer remix of “Happiness Part 1″ and an “Unreleased Track”. Enjoy!

Tracklisting:
1 Happiness (Part 1)
2 Smoking Kills
3 First One Out
4 The Return Of The Shiny Black Bug
5 This Too Could Be Music
6 Buy One, Get One Free
7 The George & Tony Show
8 Newone
9 Isn’t That Cute?
10 Arthur Brown
11 One Piece Bathing Suit
12 Gimme Twenty
13 Varesian
14 Arnhem
15 Happiness (Part 2)
16 Get One Free

Paperhouse – Happiness Part 1 (Longer mix)

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Possession is the solo project of one-time COIL collaborator Stephen Thrower. Released in 1984 on the small English label A-Mission Records, The Thin White Arms (for short), is an experimental record that would appeal to fans of COIL and the like. Possession was a trio of Thrower, A-Mission label head Gordon Hope, and Andrew Victor Wood; the latter of which became a member of the late 90s indie-rock band Ultrasound. Thrower made his first appearance on the COIL album Scatology, playing clarinet on the songs “At the Heart of It All” and “Solar Lodge” and was considered a member of the group up until 1994 or something with the release of The Angelic Conversation (a soundtrack to the Derek Jarman film). After departing COIL, he formed Cyclobe with Simon Norris (himself a frequent collaborator with Death in June). To date, Cyclobe has released 3 albums, and a CD single. So there you have it. If you like Coil, Current 93, Nurse With Wound, Death in June, etc etc, then download this.

Tracklisting:
A1 Distortion (8:10)
A2 Control And The Subject (13:12)
A3 For Andre Gide (2:40)
B1 Little Girls (5:15)
B2 Fundamentals II (6:30)
B3 Fatale (5:40)
B4 Recreation Of The Past (4:25)

Possession – Control and Subject

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Aerotake is the output of California downtempo producer Aerotake. According to his Myspace profile, he is still in high school and he was drawn towards electronic music by the background noodlings of some producer on a few Linkin Park albums. Despite that, for a first release by a young electronic musician, this is some very nice music with its flowing mix of ambient, downtempo beats, and some IDM bits. Both releases were supposed to be a full-length album called Widescreen Science, but the decision was made to split it up and release them as separate sessions. Both were released by an Australian-based netlabel (I think) called !iMBUE AUD!O netlabels. I think splitting them up was a nice idea, in this case, because it gives you a little taste to get used to the first one, before the second was was released. All of the songs were completed sometime in 2007, and so by getting these songs out of the way, this will make some time for Aerotake to compose some new work to release soon. Definitely, a young musician to keep an eye on.

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