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Perc - London, We Have You Surrounded (Wicker & Steel, Perc Trax, 2011)
Final post of what has been a fantastic year of robust techno / non-techno. The Guardian’s Tony Naylor summed up the common feel of my favourite releases of 2011 quite aptly in his review of Perc’s debut album:
“In a year of riots, phone hacking and looming economic meltdown, Ali “Perc” Wells, has created the perfect mood music for the time. Unrelentingly serious, at times tender and vulnerable, Wicker and Steel is a bleak audio montage of modern Britain, created from hard techno, ambient drones and reconditioned industrial noise.”
If you avoid the more popular end of year lists as I do, Wax Works and affiliates have some fine highlights of the year on their blog for your perusal.
Thanks for listening, and the reblogs, which we appreciate very much. Here’s to deeper, darker and more disturbing music in 2012. Salute!
“Music foretells the evolution of society because changes in musical paradigms happen more quickly than in social organisations. The scope of possibilities is explored much more rapidly in music than in the social infrastructure. Therefore, the mutation in the organisation of noise, in the nature of sounds, in its technology, helps one to understand and predict the evolution of the society as a whole.” — Jacques Attali in an interview with nthposition (2002)
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Surgeon - Muggerscum Out Remixes (Soma309D)
As far as we are concerned, Surgeon is quite simply royalty in Techno. He has made and played music as he likes, disregarding traits and trends, for 15+ years. Over these years he has worked with the likes of Regis (as British Murder Boys) and more recently Ben Sims (as Frequency 7), making records that have been a corner stone of the Birmingham Techno scene. Shortly after Surgeon had broken through with his eponymous debut EP, Magneze, on Downwards circa 1995, the original Muggerscum Out was released on Soma Records.
A strictly British selection of remixers work this hidden gem in the Surgeon and Soma catalogues. The Black Dog offer two mixes of Surgeon in their archetypal heavy, Northern style, while London’s Perc and Glasgow’s Alex Smoke turn Muggerscum Out in their own unique way.
Perc’s broken beat remix twists the original into an even more aggressive track (if that is even possible!) A mammoth kick drum sits on deep sub bass, while claps and cracks fill the holes in between these monstrous beats.
