Another very welcome guest post from Dr. Rob, live and direct from Ban Ban Ton Ton/ Japan.
Colin
Angus, of The Shamen, charted Ron Trent`s Altered States in one of the
U.K.`s rock music weeklies, around the time of the landmark 12`s initial
release in 1990.* Angus said it was a tune that he`d heard played at the
infamous, illegal RIP parties, held on London’s Clink Street.** A darker,
definitely non-Balearic, but equally as important contemporary of the more
widely celebrated acid house incubator / shrine, Shoom.
I immediately added the tune to my “wants” list, but it wasn’t until Dutch label, Djax-Up-Beats reissued the record in 1992, that I managed to find a copy. It was probably a Kris Needs review, in his Needs Must, Black Echoes, column, that alerted me to its recirculation. The hunt for it took me from Flying Records, in Kensington Market - where it was “Great track, but sorry, no mate” - to Fat Cat in Covent Garden, just off Seven Dials, which fast became my new favourite shop.
Ron Trent produced Altered States when he was just 14.*** His father was a percussionist (who sat in with jazz legend, Max Roach), a DJ, and co-founder of one of Chicago`s first record pools. Ron had grown up surrounded by rhythm, often playing along with his dad, on congas and traps, to the latest releases at home. Boy, does that upbringing show.
Created on a friend’s set up of TR-909, D50, and SB01, the track is all about the drums. A huge kick counters a super simple key refrain. Tiny snippets of snares tease. Hand-claps crash and crack like thunder. Start, stop, and then start and stop again. There’s a synth-line that’s surely inspired by Master C&J`s Dub Love, but it`s the genius mixing, and editing****, of these basic, bad ass, percussive elements that bash your body - the breakdowns more like beatdowns - and hypnotize your head. The irregular programmed patterns made to alternately march, and totally wig-out. Everything coming together and colliding with a crazy intensity, especially when showers of jazz cymbals join in. Somehow, subliminally, continually climbing, this dynamic constantly changing for the whole of the track`s 13-minute duration. Driving its timeless status, and laying the stripped-back raw, jacking, foundation for Cajmere`s Relief Records imprint, which revitalized house and techno in the mid-1990s - and the Green Velvet one`s own classic, Conniption Fit.
Green Velvet's 1994 single Preacher Man is the definition of simple but effective and set techno floors on fire in the mid- 90s (and ever since).
Notes
*Probably
Melody Maker, probably while talking to Push.
**Where
The Shamen`s vocalist, Richard “Mr. C(helsea)” West, DJed.
***The
whole Afterlife E.P. is great.
****Edits
by the one an only Armando.
