My Brain is Fried
"Little Grey Box" by Atom Heart
So you all know I'm a bit of a nerd when it comes to techno music, and I love hearing older tracks and contrasting the history with where techno has been lately. Today, I present some early Acid by Atom Heart, aka Uwe Schmidt. Schmidt has been making electronic music since the late 80s, and is the very definition of "prolific" - he has produced around 70 (yes, seventy) albums under various names, such as Erik Satin, Midisport, Flanger, LB, Lisa Carbon Trio, Lassigue Bendthaus and Senor Coconut (one of my favorite projects of his, where he reworks Kraftwerk songs as played by a latin/samba band - amazing!).
Anyway, this track's title refers to the Roland TB-303 'Bassline' produced in the early 80s, together with the TR-606 Drumatix. They were both cheap little plastic boxes that, used together, were intended to emulate a real bass player and a real drummer. However, musicians quickly realized that neither of the little Grey Boxes sounded much like a real drummer or a real bassist, and as such the already cheap devices got marked down cheaper and cheaper, and eventually stopped production. By the late 80s, as is the case with most musical innovation, the 303 started getting used for reasons outside its intended purpose - the box produces these bizarre, wobbly noises when the knobs are turned while the machine is running. Supposedly this was first done during a dj session by DJ Pierre in 1987, who was part of Phuture, who's "Acid Trax" from the same year is a house classic. The rest is Acid House history (if you're interested in learning more about the history aspect, I can reccomend a handful of good books including but not limited to Generation Ecstacy by Simon Reynolds and Last Night a DJ Saved My Life Bill Brewster & Frank Broughton).
This track, attributed to the Atom Heart moniker, is supposedly from 1992. See, I'm adding these modifiers to describe this track because, honestly, despite the fact that the song "Little Grey Box" sounds very much like it is from the early 90s, you never know with Schmidt. See, Schmidt has been known to throw curveballs at his audience - I mean, come on, when a guy like Uwe produces music under 30 different pseudonyms, you know the guy likes to mess with you. The point is, it could be thirteen years old, or it could have just as easily come from two months ago. Only Uwe knows for sure.
"Little Grey Box" comes from the cd ACID: Evolution 1988-2003. It is supposedly a compilation of sixteen acid-techno/house tracks from different bands, each from a different year - but again, these bands are all Schmimdt's own productions under different names (including 21 Brothers, X0X Crew, MC Unknown, Microsmiles, etc.). If you're a techno nerd like me who has an interest in this music's history, you'll enjoy this CD - if you think the 303 sound is annoying and not interesting, this will bug the hell out of you - either way, the CD comes out on June 30th on the Parisian Logistics Records, and you can order it direct from the label.
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