Dj D.i.F Duality
Plastic City

Reissue of the 1994 debut from Phil Western and Dan Handrabur's 'Off & Gone' project. A hallucinating document of the pair's initial jam sessions and what would become the genesis of a fruitful collaboration between two key members of the West Coast electronic music scene of the 90s/00s. Four tracks of deep, psychedelic techno, including the now-classic 'Namlohssa'. Re-mastered from the original DAT tapes.From Dan Handrabur [Dreamdoktor, Shukar Collective & 1/2 of Off & Gone]:I met the late Phil Western in the fall of 1992 on a visit to his record store, Oddysey Imports. There was always good music playing there, so I ended up hanging out for many hours, almost every day.It was very clear we had similar taste in music, be it the new electronic wave at the time or older music like Eighties British guitar pop, and vintage rock, not to mention ambient and world beats.A mutual friend, Robert Shea [Map Music/ Discotext], suggested we get together and jam; there was a trend going on to bring one's favorite synth to a buddy's studio and tweak knobs.We ended up making a couple of tracks which we showed Robert, a man with many connections in the new music business, by that I mean independent, forward-thinking labels from around the globe. His reaction encouraged us to release them. At the time, I was working on making a CD of my own music and tracks I had made with other tech- heads. Somehow the two cuts fitted quite well into the vibe of Outersanctum's "Frequencies From The Edge Of The Tektonic Plate" which we released in April of 1993.Sensing the possibility of a collaboration, we decided to move my equipment to Phil's place [he lived in a more permissive part of Vancouver where it was ok to work at a louder level].Armed with two Atari 1040st with midi and various synths, samplers, and drum machines, we started crafting what was to become our most important body of work of the mid-nineties, Off and Gone, Floatpoint and others. After a visit to Lopez island where Mike Kandel [1/2 of Exist Dance] had his studio, the three of us decided on the name [Off and Gone] and set a release date for our first EP. Needless to say, we were ecstatic about it since we were both very fond of the music Exist Dance was releasing.This was the incentive we needed and also a psychological push to work on more material. Our sessions were lengthy; there was not much talking and a lot of playing. Programming in Notator (now Logic Audio) was tedious but rewarding; mixes were tracked to DAT tape. Some gear without memory had to stay on for days until we were satisfied with the mixes. Occasional overheating and power outages were our biggest enemies and guests to the studio who carelessly pushed keys on synths, thus ruining arpeggios...We never used limiting or compression. We didn't own any of that gear, relying solely on the power of our sound generating devices. No audio editing was available back then, at least not to us. A few times, we snuck into Skinny Puppy's studio to play with their Pro Tools rig and track guitars and violin through the Eventide, which we resampled and used in tracks.At the time, we had the feeling of doing something important for the Vancouver electronic music scene, inspiring other musicians to build studios and strive to create new, interesting music, away from the industrial sound that defined the city for several years, for which we had the utmost respect.All the music we made together was purely for the joy of sound creation and a sincere love of dance and ambient music; without any desire for affirmation or commercial success. Throughout our relatively short but productive collaboration, there was a feeling of completing each other's ideas very easily, without arguments, in an almost telepathic way, something I personally have never experienced again with another musician.

It’s the turn of AM/PM to bring some drama to What About Never, ushering in an ‘Age of Distraction’ with an EP of dark, pulsating techno, brittle dub polyrhythms and nebulous ambience.'Dance for Me’ takes the lead, locking into a propulsive, strobing groove, rolling out tension that ebbs and flows before the alien stepper, ‘Nobody Knows Anything’ shifts the tone. The mood changes further over the sparse, chattering, electronic fusion of the title track, before melting into the gaseous, ambient coda, ‘Now’s the Time’.

Techno isn’t a genre that has birthed many consistent albums, and the dub techno subgenre even less so, but one indisputable classic is Porter Ricks’ debut ‘Biokinetics’. Originally issued on the legendary Basic Channel sub-label Chain Reaction in 1996 following a trio of 12”s, ‘Biokinetics’ was the first of the label’s album releases, and still stands as its crowning achievement. Porter Ricks are Thomas Köner and Andy Mellwig, and between them they re-framed the techno sound, imbuing the spacious ambience pioneered by label bosses Mark Ernestus and Moritz Von Oswald with a frosty, isolated experimental bent, and combining it with the sort of haunted minimalism of early Plastikman.What separated ‘Biokinetics’ from other albums at the time was its unwavering narrative – the exact sound has been interpreted countless times since, but the immersive qualities of this singular record have rarely been touched. Maybe it is down to the silvery underwater concept that ties each track together – the bubbling pads, sub-aquatic basses and muffled kick drums. But as with any great album, it’s hard to exactly put your finger on what makes it a classic. Simply put ‘Biokinetics’ is one of the most important records in the genre and one of techno’s finest albums. It has been re-released ten years ago by Type Records, and now Mille Plateaux is celebrating Porter Ricks’ and Biokinetics’ 25th anniversary with this sumptuous double viny edition.

All Nations Records new instalment in 2021 is all about a sweet stepper riddim involving three new artists on the label. First comes the magnificent voice of Amelia Harmony from UK delivering a message of hope when all lessons get learned, followed by a dangerous dub version. Next is legendary underground Rastafari singer Ramon Judah, hailing Jah to come and deliver us from trials and tribulations. Last but not the least is female artist Jah 93 from Japan who reinterpreted the riddim with a mellow but strong line of melodica. The maxi 12” is wrapped up wisely by a straight version of the riddim built, arranged, mixed and mastered by Simon Nyabinghi.

The Connection Machine is Natasja Hagemeier and Jeroen Brandjes. The vinyl version of the album has been re-mastered and features nine tracks from the CD-only original release from 2004.The label Down Low Music is a vital US resource for deeply personal electronic music that works both in bedrooms and DJ booths. It’s a label that put out celebrated albums and EPs by the likes of Convextion, E.R.P and Dan Curtin, so played a key role during its first lifetime. Ten years after their last release they return with a double vinyl version of the previously CD-only Painless album by The Connection Machine.It is an album made up of material made in the nineties that never saw the light of day and is full of achingly deep moods, dreamy acid house, down tempo electronics, ambient, and Detroit techno, all of which make it a lost classic from the Dutch techno scene. This is a vital reissue that not only re-introduces this forgotten classic to a whole new audience, but also the Down Low Music label itself.

PR16