to tweak into the spectral realms where the 303’s quavery yelps stoked dark, mysterious atmosphere. Last decade, an obscure 1982 album by Bollywood session musician Charanjit Singh was unearthed, 'Synthesizing: Ten Ragas To A Disco Beat' doing just that with acid-presaging squelch factor.


In Italy, Alexander Robotnik trailered Italo-disco and house with the 303-tickled ‘Problemes D’Amour’, while in New York, producer Chris Barbaso used a 303 for the gravel-gargling wah-wah bassline on Shannon‘s defiant anthem ‘Let The Music Play’ which, by giving electro a Latin twist, kick-started the freestyle movement while constructing the bridge between disco and electro-boogie.


BIRTH OF ACID Then came acid house. As a rock fan, Marshall Jefferson eschewed disco but embarked on making alien dance music on the new equipment he bought in summer 1984, including the first 303-splashed single, ‘I’ve Lost Control’, whose nightmare pulse-scape of spluttering acid, juggernaut beats and psychotic screams from his party fiend mate Sleezy D were inspired by early Black Sabbath and Led Zeppelin. Sleezy was a regular at DJ Ron Hardy’s Music Box; the birthplace of acid house. If Frankie Knuckles is the ‘Godfather of House’, Hardy was the devil who sired its crazed lysergic brother; the difference between the pair like night and day. Although often an unsung outlaw figure in the history of house music, Hardy is the single most important figure in its development as world phenomenon.


Whereas the music Frankie played at the Warehouse carried the torch for disco in the city where they burned it at the stake in 1979 at Comiskey Park with a pile of Bee Gees records, Hardy cut a manic, Larry Levan-type figure at the dark, sweaty Music Box. Playing tapes handed to him there and pitched-to-the-max records at chest-rattling volume in a black-painted underground vault lit by a strobe, he drove his LSD-stoked crowds to rapturous frenzy by deconstructing records into something else, even playing them backwards as he careered into experimental realms which had more in common with psychedelic happenings or avant-garde exploration. Although this writer was lucky enough to witness Levan in full flight, I only learned about Hardy [who died as a result of his heroin addiction in 1992] through the torrential enthusing of pioneers I interviewed back then, including DJ Pierre, Robert Owens and Derrick May, who declared, “The way he played and the music that he played just made me want to pee in my pants. It just changed my life completely”.


ACID TRACKS ‘Acid Tracks’ kickstarted a genre and gave it a name, its story inextricably linked with Hardy as, when Earl ‘Spanky’ Smith, Herb Jackson and Pierre started messing with a second-hand 303 in 1985, it was with the DJ and Music Box in mind. “I thought it sounded interesting,” recalled Pierre. “Then I started to twiddle some knobs and the sounds became even weirder. Ron Hardy had trained our minds, so the bass didn’t sound like noise. It sounded like something you could dance to.” They took a cassette of their raw track, then called ‘In Your Mind’, to Hardy, who liked it, playing it four times until the crowd screamed with delirious enthusiasm. Amidst growing buzz, it became known as ‘Ron Hardy’s Acid Tracks’. At that time, Chicago's fledgling dance record industry revolved around Larry Sherman's newly-formed Trax imprint, manufacturing records at his pressing plant. Rocky Jones also started DJ International, favouring vocal anthems and jacking instrumentals. After


producer Marshall Jefferson slowed it from 126bpm to 120bpm [so New York DJs would play it], the 12-minute ‘Acid Tracks' was finally released in 1987.


Armando’s ‘Land Of Confusion’ was another landmark, released in 1987 on Westbrook Records, its deeper 303 manipulation and heftier drum programming influential on the UK's smiley explosion, followed by further delights such as ’100% of Dissin’ You’. Adonis can also claim pioneer status with 1986’s seismic ‘No Way Back’, ‘We’re Rocking Down The House’ and the Endless Pokers’ rudimentary squelch-hump ‘!Poke!’ [DJ International, 1987]. Mention must also be made of Knight Action's rare 1984 12-inch ‘R-Trax (Let's Dance)', whose mangled 303 pulse was originally the B-side to Duane Thamm and Mike Marcharello’s ‘Single Girl', which placed singer Sedenia over primitive beats descended from Jesse Saunders’ ‘On and On’, the often- acknowledged first house tune.


The impact of 'Acid Tracks’ was immediate, locally- produced outings squelching out of its slipstream including Maurice's ‘This Is Acid’, Mr Lee’s ‘Art Of Acid’, Fast Eddie’s ‘Acid Thunder’, Tyree's ‘Acid Over’, Dr Derelict’s ‘That Shit’s Wild’, Liddell Townsell’s ‘As Acid Turns’ and Bam Bam’s ’Where’s Your Child?’. Phuture added vocals to declare ‘We Are Phuture’ in 1988 (B-side ‘Slam' inspiring the mighty Glasgow duo), while DJ Pierre also sculpted tweak-assaults including 'Box Energy’, ‘Hot Hands’ (as Hot Hands Hula), plus Pierre’s Pfantasy Club’s ‘Dream Girl’ and 'Fantasy Girl’ with its 'Acid Fantasy’ mix. Larry ‘Mr Fingers’ Heard was another Windy City innovator, his ‘Ecstasy’ a squelching highlight of 1988’s 'Hot Mix 5' album, while his Gherkin Jerks alias produced unhinged classic ’Acid Ingestion’. Once these records started shipping to US cities and abroad, acid house started being reinterpreted with idiosyncratic new spins (although, strangely, few producers in increasingly synthesized hip-hop used 303s, except for electro-rap maverick Kurtis Mantronik, who employed metronomic acid riffage under MC Tee’s rap on 1986’s 'Bassline’). Meanwhile, acid house became a global tsunami, discombobulating the UK into smiley fever in 1988, its own takes including Ecstasy Club’s ‘Jesus Loves The Acid’, Humanoid’s ‘Cry Baby’, Baby Ford’s ‘Oochy Koochy (F.U. Baby Yeah Yeah)’, 808 State’s ‘Let Yourself Go’ and cash-ins like D Mob’s ‘We Call it Acieed’.


DETROIT STRAIN While Detroit techno godfather Juan Atkins saw acid house as Chicago’s answer to Motor City techno, both strains were gestating at the same time. Of Detroit’s trailblazing Belleville Three (with Atkins and May), Kevin Saunderson most diverted from techno’s flight path, scoring sleek hits with Inner City while exploring acid madness in 1988 on ‘The Groove That Won’t Stop’ and 'Tranzister’ (both on his KMS), adding sounds like strings to his wired takes. Although born and raised in Chicago, K-Alexi Shelby released his first 12-inch on May’s Transmat in 1989, the stark 303 manipulations of ‘Vertigo’ lurking on the B-side of the future sex-house titan’s sinister 'All For Lee-Sah’. Shelby returned to his 303 several times, notably in 1994 on Felix Da Housecat’s Radikal Fear imprint with the frequency-waving space shuffle of ‘Thee Acid Joyride’.


After the initial acid wave subsided after 1989, its use became focused and refined by skilled devotees, entering a new phase of ‘mature’ acid. In the hands of ‘Mad’ Mike Banks and his Underground Resistance bunker squad, the 303 became a sonic battle weapon in brutal, self-released assaults such as 1991’s ’Gamma Ray’ and 1992’s ‘Piranha’, ‘Planet X’ and sub-aquatic terror torpedo ‘The Sea Wolf‘. The ‘Acid Rain’ series mesmerizingly displayed Mike’s uncanny bond with his beloved box, whether illustrating space travel or


DJ Pierre


attacking environmental abuse. Initially appearing on UR, ‘Prince of Techno’ Blake Baxter shaped a sensuous blend of husky vocals and tech house, his 1992 masterpiece ’One More Time’ turning disco classic ‘Let No Man Put Asunder’ into a sexy house vamp, its acid mix a rare example of vocals successfully mating with stiffie-brandishing 303.


HAWTIN AND OTHER


INNOVATORS Across the bridge in Windsor, Ontario, young Richie Hawtin appeared on his Plus 8 label in 1991 as FUSE [Futuristic Underground Subsonic Experiments], unleashing the malevolent subterranean belch of ‘F.U.’, followed by ‘Substance Abuse' and other demonstrations of his liquid 303 mastery. As he transformed into Plastikman, Hawtin revealed astonishing control of the machine, stroking anything from the harshest grumble to sweetest sigh on 1993's 'Sheet One' [NovaMute], before embarking on the trailblazing path he traverses today. See also 1995’s jaw-dropping 20-minute remix of System 7’s ‘Alpha Wave’. In Holland, Saskia Siegers’ Djax-Up Beats operation launched in 1990, releasing gorgeous pure techno and 303-homaging missives by local acolytes, such as Random XS’ ‘Give Your Body’ and Hexagone’s ’Burning Trash Floor’, boasting label artwork by Detroit legend Alan Oldham. Soon, original house titans had found a receptive new home, Saskia giving the likes of Mike Dunn, Armando, Steve Poindexter, K-Alexi and Ron Trent the acclaim and reward they couldn't get back home. From 1994, the Acid Junkies [Stefan Robbers and Harold de Kinderen] literally put a smiley face on their undiluted acid house and have been ever since. The Nights Of Pan’s 1992 epic ‘A Night On E (Where Nightmares Never End)’ was a classic German acid one-off, condensing the trip into a 26-minute 303


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