#2000's electronic

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Phonem - “Suspension” Bliss Tech 2001 IDM

Southwest England's Elliot Perkins is probably best known for his work as Phonem, a stage name he operated under between 1999 and 2002, through which he released three solo albums and a joint project with Arovane.

As Phonem, Perkins' specialty was to construct wondrous ambient soundscapes and then use those soundscapes as foundations for his rhythmically unpredictable and winding IDM beats. And on a 2001 track of his called "Suspension," which appeared exclusively on an excellent compilation called Bliss Tech that was a joint release by the short-lived but great netlabels of Pitchcadet and Aii, he did just that.

"Suspension" is a track that mixes a chilled-out, ethereal placidity with scratchy, distorted, cut-and-paste disruption. With a sturdy and ambient base, Perkins seems to deploy a series of three separate beat-builds. Each one starts off relatively simple and a tad weird, and as they progress, they lose their simplicity and proceed to get weirder and weirder until Perkins decides to cut them off. He uses a whole host of different sounds with his IDM constructions, too, most of which are difficult to describe, but this bop booms, zaps, talks, and also slurps, folks. And I don't think you can say that about any other song in the world besides this one.

Awesome, little-known early aughts track from this UK wizard who mixed IDM and ambient really well.

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Transalpin E.P. by Herrmann & Kleine City Centre Offices 1999 IDM

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Today’s mix:

I Love Techno 10 by T-Quest 2000 Techno

Listen to the full mix here.

This mix is twenty years and one week old today and it’s a rundown of some of the best techno that came out in the first ten months of the year 2000. “Love Story” by Andrew McLauchlan is an absolute one-hit wonder bop with Brazilian flavor (I’ve posted it before) and the Josh Wink / Lil’ Louis track repackages Lil Louis’ 1989 classic, “French Kiss,” for the new millennium, with Wink doing some superb Winkian stuff. A sampling of the songs that made the floors quake just a little over 20 years ago. Transport yourself back to 2000 with this one.

Highlights:

Dave Clarke - “Compass” Christian Smith - “Mojito (Original Mix)” Josh Wink, Lil’ Louis - “How’s Your Evening So Far” Andrew McLauchlan - “Love Story” R.S.P. - “Hypocrisy” Johannes Heil - “Golden Dawn” John Thomas - “Undisputed Life (Technasia Remix 2)” Clemens Neufeld - “1001″

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Faze Action - “Moving Cities (Cinematic Orchestra Remix)” Nuphonic 03 2000 Future Jazz

From critic William Ruhlmann:

The British dance music duo Faze Action consists of brothers Simon and Robin Lee. They grew up in Amersham, where Robin taught himself to play bass; he later studied music at Goldsmith College. Also interested in music, Simon began producing. Robin took a job as an English teacher in Osaka, Japan, and the two sent tapes back and forth to each other. As Faze Action, they released their debut single, "Original Disco Motion," in 1995, followed by "In The Trees" in 1996. 1997 saw the release of their first album, Plans & Designs. Their second album, Moving Cities, was their first to be released In the U.S. in 1999, by which time Robin had moved back to the U.K.

Though they’re not known nearly as much as they deserve to be, Britain’s Faze Action brothers are experts at fusing together nu-disco with classical strings and pan-African and Latin music. Just take a listen to a song like “Moving Cities” to get a good idea. It’s sort of like that Walter Murphy track from Saturday Night Fever where he paired Beethoven’s fifth symphony with disco-funk, but without all those gimmicky climbs and climaxes. “Moving Cities” represented a clean rehash of a classic disco sound, but made for a globalized, new millennium, and with a touch of moodiness.

Here:

After Moving Cities’ 1999 release, a 12-inch single for the title track emerged the following year. And on that 12-inch is a superb future jazz remix by a UK band called The Cinematic Orchestra. Truth be told, the remix sounds almost nothing like the original. If you listen to them back to back, you can pick up on a rhythmic similarity, but just barely. Had The Cinematic Orchestra’s remix not appeared on the same 12-inch as the original version, and had it been given a completely different title, they probably could’ve just gotten away with calling it one of their own songs. Hard to imagine that anyone would’ve actually linked the two tracks together.

So, whereas the original version of “Moving Cities” is a fantastic brand of pure 70s-glitz and glam, instrumental disco revival, The Cinematic Orchestra’s remix is like if you were trekking deep through a forest and all of a sudden encountered a well-seasoned jazz ensemble. There’s just such a raw, organic earthiness to this one. A thick combination of layers of short, repetitive rhythms and melodies, and with lots of percussion, all playing their small, but important role like cogs in a machine, constantly building in order to provide a sturdy foundation for a series of changing leads; first the keyboards, then the bass, and then a well-placed and unexpected addition of horn stabs. And if you listen with a good pair of headphones, those horns, man, the way they mixed them, it almost sounds like they’re coming in from outside of the headphones, like they’re in the room with you, penetrating through your cans, and not in the forest that you’re imagining the song was actually recorded in.

I’m just so captivated by this tune. A phenomenal piece of turn-of-the-millennium future jazz.

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2000 IDM Playlist

For an explainer of what IDM is, which I’ve never found a good definition for, check out my longwinded attempt at it from when I first posted my 90s IDM playlist:

I’ve never liked the term “IDM,” the acronym for “intelligent dance music.” It’s such a loaded and condescendingly snotty way to encapsulate the essence and sound of a music genre. “Oh, you listen to dance music? Pfft, well I listen to intelligent dance music.” Please shut up and go away now. More than that, the second word in the term is also misapplied. IDM is far from dance music. Although there are some songs that you can dance to, the vast majority of the music is made to be sat down and listened to.

So then, what exactly is IDM? That’s not an easy question to answer. In fact, a perusal of a bunch of articles about it won’t give you a good response. The fact is that there’s no clear-cut definition and its sound is difficult to describe. But I’ll give it a shot. It’s electronic music with an experimental streak. Inspired by house and techno, a typical IDM song consists of complex rhythms that string together a multitude of minuscule and disjointed sounds to create something cohesive. Ticks, clicks, cuts, beeps, bleeps, dings, rings, clanks, and clinks are all words that are often used to describe the sound of an IDM track. A lot of tunes have a mechanical, sometimes glitchy feel, lending to their techno roots, but some of them can sound actually quite organic. Some exemplary IDM songs have a unique way of layering and combining multiple rhythms, which reflects some very intricately woven work.

So, here we go. A collection of some amazing IDM tracks from the year 2000, backloaded with a bunch of songs off of a dope double-disc German comp called Putting the Morr Back in Morrissey, which has absolutely nothing to do with the Smiths’ frontman, but instead manages to strike a super cool balance between the intertwining worlds of IDM, downtempo, and post-rock indietronica types of acts like The Notwist and Lali Puna. Real earthy, crunchy, organic, wintry sunrise kinda vibes in this playlist as of right now.

This playlist is ordered as chronologically as possible and links are provided below to songs that have been posted about previously in order to give them more context:

Lypid - “Paradigm Shift” Druckwelle - “Unteracherting” The Notwist - “Scoop” Arovane - “Delc:r” Blond - “Status” Solvent - “Tonka Truck” Kandis - “Herbstzwilling (Tied & Tickled Trio Rmx)” Tied & Tickled Trio - “Utrom (Kandis Remix)” Blond - “Status (B. Fleischmann Rmx)” Lali Puna - “Fast Forward (Flowchart Rmx)”

This playlist is also on YouTube and YouTube Music, with some added bonus tracks that aren’t on Spotify:

Dynamo - “18°” Phonem - “Blue Skies Over Leuna (Wish I Was Somewhere Else)” Roger van Lunteren - “N-2097″

More to come, eventually.

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Koichi - “Freaky Freak” Electric Chicken Volume One 2000 IDM

Koichi Shimizu is a Bangkok-based electronic musician originally from Japan. He hasn’t released much music in his 20-plus-year career, but when he does, good fucking god. After debuting with a song for a Japanese experimental / ambient compilation, Shimizu would find himself on the UK’s innovative and darling Worm Interface label. His first album would end up being a 1999 split-LP with Japanese IDM/dnb whiz Himuro Yoshiteru. In 2000, Shimizu donned the alias Hanumand for some trip hop work and also made some tracks under his Koichi moniker for a few Worm Interface comps. One of those tracks was the fantastic “Freaky Freak,” appearing on Worm Interface’s Electric Chicken Volume One.

There’s a bunch of reasons as to why “Freaky Freak” is so good, but top of mind would have to be its swiftness. The unpredictable, underlying percussive stutters have a way of moving like a break on some jungle or breakbeat hardcore track, and maybe because of both that fact and where the little hits of bass are situated, this song has a little bit of a distant, abstract funkiness to it, too. A lot of the cymbal taps on here also have a very unique sound to them, and when those ring and jing alongside the unorthodox drums and the varyingly warm and creeping, intertwined, harp-like synth melodies, this track reaches its most complex and satisfying points.

Shimizu would then run a pretty successful Thai indie label from around 2003 to 2016 called SO:ON Dry FLOWER that specialized in indie / shoegaze / post-rock stuff. He would go pretty quiet after 2000, as far as releasing his own music, but in 2015 he would finally release his first solo album, Otolary.

Wonderful early 2000s IDM from this seldom heard talent.

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Geiom - “Understanding Openers” Cashier Escape Route 2000 IDM / Abstract

Geiom is a diverse electronic artist from Nottingham, UK who's known for his prowess as both an IDM and dubstep producer. His career dates back to 1995, when he appeared on a four-song British ambient and IDM 12-inch compilation called Meir-Formation. But it took another few years for Geiom to receive his first real breakout opportunity: appearing on the Skam label's 12" compilation, MASK 300, under the name Mear. Limited to 300 copies, this record is both revered and highly sought after. One copy is currently for sale on Discogs for almost $170. His

Geiom's initial Skam appearance then led to more fortuitous chances. In 2000, he contributed an exclusive track to the German-based abstract IDM label City Centre Offices for their compilation, Cashier Escape Route. Titled "Understanding Openers," this track is quite a strange trip.

Geiom presents a seemingly limitless smorgasbord of difficult-to-describe, glitchy electronic sounds and lays them over warm pads and chimes along with a softly bludgeoning kick drum, managing to fashion something that's schizophrenically ever-changing. There really is no constant refrain as new, brief rhythms and melodies continously form and intersect with each other as the preceding ones die off. Musically, this song is like the half-lives of a thousand different fruit flies.

A very abstract IDM tune from the early 2000s. Geiom would go on hiatus at some point in 2001, but returned in 2006, rebranding as a dubstepper and launched a new label called Berkane Sol. He hasn't officially released anything since 2014, but he was posting to his SoundCloud up to two years ago.

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Rino Cerrone - “Rilis” Relentless Beats Vol. 1 by Misstress Barbara 2001 Techno

***Song starts at 46:38 and ends at 49:13***

Italy’s Rino Cerrone has consistently been one of the country’s top techno artists over the past two decades. A native of Naples, Cerrone has produced a prolific amount of techno, distributing his work among a variety of labels, including his own, Rilis. Originally an accomplished motorcycle racer at a young age, Cerrone found his next passion in music. Starting with punk and other types of rock, he would eventually gravitate towards the vast expanse of electronic music, and decided to try his hand at producing techno.

In ‘97, Cerrone made his debut in a trio called QMen and by ‘99 he was producing on his own. In 2000, he and his friend co-founded Rilis (pronounced “release”) and the next year, he released a whopping 14 records. One of them is titles Rilis 05 and its first track was included on a fantastic mix by fellow countrywoman Misstress Barbara.

With this untitled groove (nearly every song on Rilis is untilted, which lends to the dominant techno theme of anonymity), Cerrone brilliantly creates a track that’s simultaneously dystopian and tribal. Laid over top is a chirping, warped, metallic stabbing melody that signifies a dystopian environment and lying underneath is a tribal drumbeat. Revving bass pulses also undergird the song and when Cerrone drops in scratchy, pounding kick drums and open hats, this song becomes quite a top-notch techno floor stomper.

A superb piece of early 2000s Italian techno.