AFRICA HITECH
93 Million Miles
WARPCD199
Warp Records 2011
11 Tracks. 58mins19secs

Amazon UK: CD | LP | DLD US: CD | LP | DLD Boomkat: CD | LP | DLD iTunes: DLD Spotify: STRM

Africa Hitech dropped a substantial first EP of broken dubstep and hip-hop-infused grooves just over a year ago, setting the hype machine in full swing in the process. The project of Mark Pritchard (of Global Communication/Jedi Knights/Harmonic 313 fame) and Steve ‘Spacek’ White, the idea of Africa Hitech came out of a desire to blend Detroit techno, soul and Jamaican dancehall. This was first synthesized into the razor-sharp urban textures of Blen, which was followed a few weeks later by an even more hard-hitting second offering, Hitecherous.

Fast-forward a year, and 93 Million Miles takes the pair’s original template and expands it to full length format. Right from the hyperactive opening title track, with its syncopated urban beat, minimal keyboard washes and vocoded electronic voice, the pair move beyond their first EPs to assert further the intrinsically digital context of their music, something which comes out even more clearly later on with the utterly excellent and hypnotic hard-edged digital dub of Out In The Street or the arcade bleep-happy Gangslap or Foot Step. This album is a vastly eclectic mix of concussed beats, playful eruption of electronics and lush linear soundscapes, which fuses its influences and scatter them out again in chaotic clusters faster than it is humanly possible to take stock. This is quite a dangerous thing to do, or at least it would be in the hands of less experienced musicians than these two. Here, it becomes a thrilling journey where pretty much anything can, or should, happen at any moment.

Pritchard and White never chose the easy route to progress through this album, but this is exactly what makes it such a thoroughly enjoyable listen. Following the hardened surfaces of Do U Wanna Fight, the massive sleek Out In The Streets feels like getting out of cold straight into a gigantic warehouse party and instantly be dripping with sweat. The transition between Gangslap, Our Luv and Spirit is equally as disjointed. One minute you’re being chased by some pixelated baddies in some SuperMario land, the next you’ve stepped onboard some trans-continental night train and are cutting through the countryside at the speed of light, before finding yourself sat around a fire in an African village in the deepest savanna, with Richard H Kirk as your host. And then there’s the tribal jazz of Cyclic Sun, the noxious atmosphere of Future Moves or the pastoral dubstep of Light The Way to throw things out even more.

Whatever tags stick to this record, and more generally to what they have produced so far, doesn’t affect Africa Hitech in the least. 93 Million Miles is, despite its comprehensive eclecticism, an extremely consistent album fueled by an infectious mirth.

4.8/5

Africa Hitech | Africa Hitech (MySpace) | Warp Records
Amazon UK: CD | LP | DLD US: CD | LP | DLD Boomkat: CD | LP | DLD iTunes: DLD Spotify: STRM

Out In The Streets by Warp Records

VARIOUS ARTISTS
Warp20 (Box Set) / Warp20 (Recreated) / Warp20 (Chosen)
WARP20.0 / WARP201 / WARP 202
Warp Records 2009
– / 21 Tracks / 24 Tracks. – / 99mins13secs / 127mins18secs

Warp20 (Box Set)
Boomkat: BX

Warp20 (Recreated)
Amazon UK: CD Amazon US: CD Boomkat: CD iTunes: DLD

Warp20 (Chosen)
Amazon UK: CD Amazon US: CD Boomkat: CD iTunes: DLD

LFO. Three metallic blue letters, straddled by a ghostly shape, set on a black background. Three letters that changed things forever. The year was 1991, I was browsing through the new arrivals in my local records store, and the Designers Republic artwork of LFO’s Frequencies was standing out from the blur, calling out for my attention. An hour or so later, I was left baffled by a record which I was struggling to understand. On one side, the lush flow and shattering bass of LFO or Simon From Sydney irresistibly titillated my appetite for crisp evocative electronics, on the other, I had never experienced anything quite as bare as Mentok 1 or We Are Back. This album bore its influences on its sleeve, literally, and it took a few listens to ‘get it’. But ‘get it’ I did. More than I could have ever wished for. I was hooked. Not only on LFO, but also on Warp.

The brainchild of Steve Beckett and the late Rob Mitchell, who founded the label twenty years ago in the former metallurgic city of Sheffield, Warp found itself at a crossroad between the dying acid scene and the nascent UK techno/electronica movements, fuelled by waves of grooves and beats coming from Detroit, and soon gathered a fledging roster comprising the likes of Nightmares On Wax, Sweet Exorcist, the project of Richard ‘DJ Parrot’ Barratt and former Cabaret Voltaire member Richard H. Kirk, LFO, Tricky Disco or DJ Mink, all names who have become synonymous with this then new sound coming from the north. The first release, Forgemasters’ Track With No Name, dressed in a highly visible purple sleeve, sounded as mysterious as its title, and the following EPs, Nightmares On Wax’s Dextrous, Sweet Exorcist’s Test One, DJ Mink’s Hey! Hey! Can You Relate, Tricky Disco’s and LFO’s eponymous releases, all released within a year, started to give a much clearer idea of the label’s direction.

WARP1 came in early 1991, courtesy of Sweet Exorcist. This very first artist full length contained just seven cuts of minimal beats, bleepy electronica and hypnotic loops, and, together with the albums that followed, LFO’s seminal Frequencies and Nightmares On Wax’s A World Of Science, established the blue print of what Warp would stand for in the first half of the nineties. But, while these albums all shared a taste for beelpy house and techno, they had clear individual identities. CCCD was tinted with Afro beats, Frequencies openly referenced Kraftwerk, A World Of Science was soulful and groovy.

The next significant step, and perhaps the single most defining moment of the label’s twenty years’ history, came the following year with the release of a new compilation, entitled Artificial Intelligence, which kicked off the series of the same name. Then, names such as B12, The Black Dog or Autechre were only known to a few, but this collection, and the subsequent albums, changed all that. Six albums, by Polygon Window, The Black Dog, B12, Richie Hawtin, Speedy J and Autechre, bookended by two compilations, released over two years, would forever place Warp at the forefront of contemporary electronic music. Since, there has been the acid jazz/funk of Jimi Tenor, the retro-futuristic pop of Broadcast, the sweet folk of Gravenhurst, the progressive hip-hop of Antipop Consortium, the angular rock of Battles… but Warp remains above all a hive of forward-thinking electronic music, whether in the hands of Boards Of Canada, Squarepusher or Clark.

Twenty years is a very long time in popular music, yet going through the label’s releases, it also feels like a blink. The first outings on the label of Aphex Twin (1994), Boards of Canada (1998), Broadcast (2000), Jamie Lidell (2000) or Clark (2001), the Peel Session series, they are all still vivid markers in the label’s history. Compiling a ten track album out of such a vast and varied catalogue was always going to be an impossible task, and one that Steve Beckett couldn’t manage. His contribution to the Warp20 (Chosen) collection contains fourteen, carefully selected from thousands, lifted off albums or EPs, and often away from obvious choices (Broadcast’s Tender Buttons, Flying Lotus’s GNG BNG, Mike Ink’s Paroles or Aphex Twin’s Bocephalus Bouncing Ball) alongside slightly better known tracks (Grizzly Bear’s Colorado, Squarepusher’s My Sound or Jamie Lidell’s Daddy’s Car). By contrast, the first of the two (Chosen) CDs was selected from votes fans recorded on a special website, and expectedly features some of the most iconic and best known tracks on the labels, from Aphex Twin’s Window Licker, which opens, Squarepusher’s My Red Hot Car or Battles’ Atlas to LFO’s LFO, Luke Vibert’s I Love Acid, Autechre’s Gantz Graf or Clark’s Herzog, all neatly lined up like for an identity parade. Such an exercise is likely to cause controversy through obvious omissions (there is, for instance, no mention of Mira Calix, B12, Prefuse 73 or Two Lone Swordsmen) but covering as wide a catalogue as that of Warp in such a short formatted way is, quite, impossible.

The second half of this Warp20 selection goes much further than the traditional remix exercise, as was the case with Warp 10. Various members of the roster, past and present, were each asked to cover a track released through the label in the last twenty years. The result is, to say the least, eclectic and full of surprises, from the playful (Born Ruffians version of Aphex Twin’s Milkman, here combined with To Cure A Weakling Child, Plone’s On My Bus, as interpreted by Plaid), to the slightly odd (John Callaghan basing a composition on Autechre’s Tilapia), and the poetic (Boards Of Canada’s Kaini Industries as viewed through the eyes of Bibio or Jamie Lidell’s wonderfully impressive revision of Grizzly Bear’s Little Brother) to the insanely brilliant (Luke Vibert’s take on LFO, Mark Pritchard’s excellent 3/4 Heart, originally by The Black Dog, Mira Calix’s exquisite and orchestral In A Beautiful Place Out In The Country, Pivot’s Colorado or Gravenhurst’s magnificent reworking of Broadcast’s I Found The F).

These two collections offer just a glimpse into the first two decades of a label that has unmistakably marked its era, like Blue Note, Impulse, Motown or Island did theirs. (Chosen), with its straightforward selection provides an ideal entry point to the label and proves a worthy companion to Warp 10+2: Classics, released to celebrate the label’s tenth anniversary, while (Recreated) offers a much more oblique and novel way through the catalogue, and is more likely to appeal to fans. In addition, Warp are releasing an extremely limited box set which, besides these two compilations, will also feature a mix CD in the tradition of Blech or WarpVision, plus three 10″ comprising previously unreleased material by Autechre, Boards of Canada, Broadcast and more, plus double 10” of loops to play with, the lot encased in a stunning box and accompanied by a catalogue documenting over 400 record covers designed by some of the most exciting studios around. Now, that’s a compendium! Happy anniversary Warp. Here’s to the next 20 years.

Warp20 (Recreated): 4.7/5 / Warp20 (Chosen): 4.9/5

Warp Records

Warp20 (Box Set)
Boomkat: BX

Warp20 (Recreated)
Amazon UK: CD Amazon US: CD Boomkat: CD iTunes: DLD

Warp20 (Chosen)
Amazon UK: CD Amazon US: CD Boomkat: CD iTunes: DLD

MARK PRITCHARD
? / The Hologram
HOHUM003
Ho Hum Records 2009
02 Tracks. 11mins23secs
Format: Digital

Buy: MP3 | iTunes

Most electronic musicians have some kind of signature sound – a crunchy clap/snare hybrid, or an acid synth squelch, perhaps. It’s something to signify to listeners that, even if the tracks we’re hearing are from a new pseudonym, it’s still the same person behind the controls.

Not so with Mark Pritchard. A member of Global Communication, Jedi Knights, Harmonic 33, and his recent solo project Harmonic 313 (just to name a few), Pritchard is a true sonic chameleon. The mellotron-heavy noir-museum feel of Harmonic 33 signifies little that it’s the same person who’s behind the lush ambient house of Global Communication or Harmonic 313’s bassy tech-hop. ?, Pritchard’s latest single – this time released under his given name for a change – throws yet another curveball. Abandoning the beats and pieces of the fresh Harmonic 313 full-length, When Machines Exceed Human Intelligence, ? is all foreboding atmosphere.

Harking back to Eno’s subtle and subdued ambient bubbles, there’s an undeniable thrill I feel every time I’m listening to ?, and I suddenly notice the track. It starts with a creepy Rhodes drone which seems to perfectly blend in with the industrial sounds of walking around a city, such that it can take up to half the track’s length for it to “out” itself as an intentional piece of music. Even when this happens, it’s still not exactly an explosion; Pritchard layers a few select Rhodes lines and warped Casiotone licks, before the piece fades out just as mysteriously as it began. Admittedly, my first impression was along the lines of “that’s it?,” but repeated listens have revealed the decaying, beautiful genius behind such a structure.

The Hologram is a more tangible B-side, bolstered by an actual beat. The atmosphere of late-night studio exploration remains, as The Hologram slowly paces itself through endlessly reverberated and echoing synthesizer squeals. The beat is all syrup, dripping down slowly through a booming sieve (here it’s also worth it to point out that the mastering is an extra claustrophobic treat). The end effect of The Hologram is a Harmonic 313-style dubstep single played at 33.

To be sure, ? / The Hologram is a curio in Mark Pritchard’s catalogue, and in terms of publicity, it’s taken a backseat to the 313 full-length and upcoming collaboration with Steve Spacek. It’s a testament to Pritchard’s creative prowess that he can knock out something so engaging as a side project. Fans of music that hits the intestines, the heart, and the mind with equal force would do well to seek this out.

4/5

Mark Pritchard (MySpace) | Reload Online | Ho Hum Records
Buy: MP3 | iTunes

HARMONIC 313
EP1
WAP231
Warp Records 2008
06 Tracks. 22mins43secs
Format: 12″/Digital

Mark Pritchard certainly needs no introduction. From his time as one half of Global Communication, responsible for one of the finest ambient albums ever released, to various other projects, solo, with Tom Middleton or others (Jedi Knights, Reload, Link or Troubleman to name but a few), he has made an undeniable mark on electronic music. His latest project sees him remodel Harmonic 33 by adding a one between the threes and move away from the down tempo, library music-infused sound he has developed with Dave Brinkworth on the pair’s two albums to turn his attention to classic Detroit techno and eighties electro pop.

This first H313 release is something of an audio-visual feast. Each track on EP1 is only identified as Problem 1-5 for the 12″ and Problem 1-6 for the digital version, with the real titles colour-coded. This is combined with a game on the H313 website, which, once all tracks have been correctly identified, gives access to an additional track, not available on any other format. Expanding on the playful aspect, Problem 1 sees Pritchard rewind time and land in the middle of a Speak & Spell exercise driven by the cold and robotic processed voice that terrorised legions of children into spelling correctly. Pritchard then deploys an 8-bit carpet of noises and bleeps which sounds like Kraftwerk on a day trip to a Pac-man nursery school. The heavy beat contrasts radically, bringing the pace down and giving the track a much more serious undertone. The second piece functions in pretty much the same way, minus the vocals, but here Pritchard integrates a short melodic pattern to lighten up the mood. Problem 3 and 4 clearly reference early nineties Detroit by applying different aspects of the scene to each piece. While the former rides on warm analogue waves, with occasional shaded vocals and a comatose groove as backbone, the latter is drenched in acid squelches and progresses lazily over its four minutes, recalling in part Luke Vibert’s I Love Acid of a few years back. The 12″ concludes with the short Speak & Spell outburst of Problem 5, while, on the digital version of the EP, Problem 6 reviews Problem 1 by removing all vocal content and revealing the piece in all its glory.

The bonus track Problem 7, which is only available to download, for free, from the Harmonic 313 website once the six previous problems have been resolved, brings H313 right into the twenty first century by stamping a frisky dubstep beat over bleeps and deep granular noises.

This first release as Harmonic 313 pays tribute to some of Mark Pritchard’s grounding roots. EP1 is a playful collection of electronic tracks which pave the way for a more expanded project, developed over the course of a full album, later on in the year.

3.7/5

Harmonic 313 | Warp Records
Buy: iTunes