space-rush. The following year saw Frankfurt’s Ongaku unfurl the eerie, cerebral chomp of 'Mihon’ on Pod.
With the internet having practically obliterated the impact a newly-arrived 12-inch could have, it’s hard to convey the sheer mayhem caused by Hardfloor’s ‘Acperience 1’ when it arrived one 1992 weekend and proceeded to send the nation’s clubbers into one mass synthesized orgasm with its relentless 303 building up to the breakdown of all-time. In a UK-dominated by jungle rave and 'intelligent techno’, Cologne’s Oliver Bondzio and Ramon Zenker embarked on a mission to re-establish the 303 as worthy of worship, using six of the little silver fellas to consolidate their status with stellar remixes, ‘Trancescript’ and 'T.B. Resuscitation' album. Inspired by Hardfloor, I recorded an EP called 'The Acid Chamber’ with UK 303-master Pete ‘Hypnotist’ Smith under the name Sulphuric, released on Creation’s Infonet offshoot, honoured to be asked to remix ‘Acperience' when it was reissued in 1997 (tall order!).
RETURN 303 tones also enjoyed a resurgence in the mid-1990s when used by names such as the Chemical Brothers and Fatboy Slim, plus Josh Wink’s ‘Higher State Of Consciousness'. In the underground, a new strain of heavyweight acid mania was sparked by Dan Zamani and Tim Taylor’s Pump Panel, whose squelch-frenzy missives, including 'Ego Acid’
and
‘To The Sky’, along with the devastating ’Planet Of Drums’ series, raised the thermonuclear bar again as tribal drums and sirens joined the fray. Zamani, who I had the pleasure of working with on my Secret Knowledge project in 1995, is an acid virtuoso but treats his ‘silver axe’ like a wilful lady, giving this description of her inner workings. “The 303 for most people is just about this sound, which is, of course, unique among
synths. But I also think the genius of its design is its inbuilt sequences. In addition to the notes and their timing, the combination of note transposition, accent and slide produce an amazingly mutated funky line, which is impossible to programme with a standard keyboard. The best thing is you didn’t need to know that; just randomly pressing buttons still gave great results and, although I knew the machine inside out, I found it was still unpredictable in its way of playing sequences, which for me was really important. I must have written thousands of basslines, sometimes working it out musically but more often just randomly hitting as many buttons as quickly as I could! And the filter envelope! Ooh baby! So diverse, from sub to squelch to resonance heaven…” The Missile crew also hooked up with similarly-inspired US acid warriors including New York’s Damon Wild [EXperimental/Synewave] and Minneapolis’ Freddie Fresh, Woody McBride plus other 303 evangelists on the Analog label. Even Miami’s Murk crew belched out the club-destroying 'Deep Double Acid Mix' of their ‘Bugged Out’ in 1993, while New York's Mark The 909 King scraped the sound raw on 1994's ‘Acid Core'.
STAY UP FOREVER From the UK free party underground emerged a label dedicated to hot-wiring the spirit of Hardfloor carnage; Stay Up Forever was started by Liberator DJs Chris, Aaron and Julian, releasing 303-driven monsters under names such as A&E Dept, Trip Hazard and the Rozzers Dog tag I used with another 303 master called D.A.V.E. The Drummer on onslaughts such as 'World War 303’. By the time we got to 2005’s Jackuoff project with Guy The Geezer, SUF and its sub-labels felt like the last bastion of the 303 and its accompanying lunacy. In the outside world, with increasingly corporate dance music and DJs striving for rich list status, the 303 became just another sound in the laptop, which made old school ‘Acid tracks'-style one-offs like the 2006 chompathon of Capracara’s 'Opal Rush’ on Soul Jazz a rare treat.
UK house DJ-producer Luke Solomon has stuck to his own idiosyncratic
Luke Solomon
take on house music’s original questing spirit, while running his Music For Freaks label with partner-in- the-Freaks Justin Harris. His recent 'Beyond Therapy Volume One' EP courses with otherworldly synths, rough-edged thud and old school anarchy, but was created with modern technology, showing how acid house is as much about wigged-out passion and attitude as time, place and equipment. As Luke, whose all-time fave is Larry Heard’s 'Acid Ingestion’, explains, “Now, it’s more about the spirit of what acid and acid house conjures up for me. There are a lot of straight-up replications and a lot of great instances of taking the spirit of acid house and the 303 and mixing it with something new. Modern technology allows you to manipulate a sound in ways we never could. That’s the new version for me.”
As the little machines age into museum pieces, their legacy lives on with the likes of Solomon and Zamani, but should never be forgotten as one of the crucial tools which built the music clubbers cavort to now. While those original tunes now glow like hallucinogenic poltergeists, there’s no reason why that wild desire to rage into the unknown with machines should ever be stifled in these very different times.
RECOMMENDED LISTENING: All of the above, but these recent compilations capture Chicago beginnings:
ACID: CAN YOU JACK? CHICAGO ACID & EXPERIMENTAL HOUSE 1985-1995
ACID - MYSTERONS INVADE THE JACKIN’ ZONE [CHICAGO ACID & EXPERIMENTAL HOUSE 1986-93] [BOTH SOUL JAZZ]
THE ART OF ACID; MIXED BY JUSTIN ROBERTSON [HARMLESS]
K-Alexi 056
djmag.com
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