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Solid Gold

The cover of Robert Hood's 'Minimal Nation' on a black background

Released on 1st January 1994, Robert Hood’s ‘Minimal Nation’ saw the pioneering Detroit producer distil techno’s futuristic intent, creating a stripped back, raw and percussive record that became a defining work of the minimal techno sound. 30 years later, and with minimal more prominent than ever, Ben Cardew speaks to Hood about the album’s enduring influence

It is fitting that Robert Hood's ‘Minimal Nation’ was released to the world on 1st January, 1994. Rarely has a record so clearly signalled a...

Talking Heads' ‘Speaking in Tongues’ album artwork on a green background

Released 40 years ago, Talking Heads’ fifth album was a firm fixture in Larry Levan’s tastemaking Paradise Garage record bag. A stone-cold new wave disco classic filled with now-iconic hits, it spread through New York’s clubs like wildfire. Here, Ben Cardew learns how ‘Speaking In Tongues’ enshrined one of the era’s least classifiable bands on dancefloors forever 

The term “dance-punk” is a slippery one. Since emerging in the late ‘70s, thanks to bands like Liquid Liquid and ESG in New York and...

Fatboy Slim’s ‘You've Come a Long Way, Baby’ at 25: Norman Cook's rock & roll opus

A masterclass in sampling, Fatboy Slim's second album remains the best example of Norman Cook’s unmistakable sound: a tightly-knit yet light-wearing blend of rock & roll instrumentation and energy with the hedonistic spirit of late ‘90s British dance music. It went to No.1 in the charts, made a star of its creator, and is ubiquitous to this day. 25 years since its release, Ben Cardew explores its legacy

When Fatboy Slim’s ‘Rockafeller Skank’ was released June 1998, it whirled like a waltzer of twangy guitars and thrashing drum breaks. With its instantly hit-making...

The cover art for Massive Attack's 'Mezzanine' on a dark blue background

Released 25 years ago, Massive Attack’s third album, ‘Mezzanine’, signalled the closing of a chapter for the influential Bristol electronic group, and the beginning of a new one for British music as a whole. Spliced with jagged post-punk guitars, their final album as a trio predicted an end-of-century turn for the dark and brooding at the twilight of the rave era

For Massive Attack, the 1990s ended on 20th April 1998, with the release of their third studio album, ‘Mezzanine’. Sure, the actual decade would go...

Neneh Cherry's 'Raw Like Sushi' album cover on a dark blue background

Neneh Cherry’s 1989 debut LP, featuring beloved tracks like ‘Buffalo Stance’ and ‘Manchild’, was the product of both a bohemian free thinker and a groundbreaking musical collective. Here, Ben Cardew explores how Cherry's introduction to the world told an an inspiring tale of collaborative creative freedom, and blazed a trail for the influential Bristol sound of the '90s

You know those moments in Hollywood films where the camera pans back to reveal the character who, unbeknownst to the viewer, has been at the...

Album artwork for K-Hand's ‘The Art Of Music’ on !K7 Records

Brimming with intricate synth patterns and serpentine drums, ‘The Art Of Music’ is perhaps K-Hand's most straightforwardly beautiful and coherent recording. Its 10 tracks are minimal in their way, with little more to them than a handful of elements, but each layer is its own miniature work of art, honed to perfection. As part of our Solid Gold series, Ben Cardew remembers a standout album from Kelli Hand, a fiercely independent artist named the First Lady of Detroit by the city’s council

In the hands of some producers, techno can be a horribly solid thing — a leaden, grid-based, efficient excuse for music — with little in...

Deep Dish press shot

After six years of standalone productions and remixes, Ali “Dubfire” Shirazinia and Sharam Tayebi’s 1998 debut LP as Deep Dish marked a transition for the duo, crafting a rock / house fusion that shouldn’t work — but, 25 years on, somehow does

In the mid to late ‘90s, deep-but-commercial house had a name — and that name was Deep Dish. Okay, maybe that’s a slight exaggeration, given...

Cover art of Drexciya's 'The Quest'

Released in 1997, Drexciya's double-vinyl compilation 'The Quest' marked the duo's breakthrough onto a larger public stage, as well as their first, temporary, retirement. With liner notes that sharpened their Afrofuturist mythology into focus , it is also the record that cemented many fans' sonic liaison with the Detroit duo, following a series of 12" releases that perfected their musical ideas. Here, Ben Cardew reflects on a record that most perfectly encapsulates the style, grace, and range of James Stinson and Gerald Donald's project

Detroit duo Drexciya were electronic music’s ultimate world builders and myth makers, a production unit whose exquisite musical control was tied to a profoundly moving...

Urban Tribe

Urban Tribe, aka Sherard Ingram (DJ Stingray 313), released 'The Collapse Of Modern Culture' in 1998. Enlisting a host of Motor City legends and stepping outside the restraints of tempo and genre, Ingram created a slice of future-proof ambience. Here, Jack Anderson explores the largely under-the-radar LP

Released in 1998, Urban Tribe’s ‘The Collapse Of Modern Culture’ stepped outside of tempo and genre. A communal work helmed by Sherard Ingram (aka DJ...

Moon Safari solid gold

Released in early 1998, Versailles duo Air’s debut album ‘Moon Safari’ was a gentle antidote to the wave of French Touch at the time. With an emphasis on melody and mood, it became a ubiquitous soundtrack to the end of the 20th century, and still sounds inspired today. Here, Ben Cardew explores its legacy

This feature was originally published by DJ Mag North America in 2019 So much electronic music is dominated by rhythm: the 4/4 stomp of techno...

LTJ Bukem

Mixing elements of jazz and ambient with drum & bass, LTJ Bukem’s now-classic 1996 release via Good Looking Records was a statement of intent, and remains one of the genre's most fulfilling and impactful releases to this day 

For many music fans in the 1990s, their immersion into jungle and drum & bass started not with Goldie’s celebrated ‘Timeless’ or Roni Size /...

Can you feel it: How Mr. Fingers ‘Ammnesia’ changed the house music experience

33 years after its release in 1989, Larry Heard’s debut album as Mr. Fingers is a profoundly moving document of timeless electronic music, brimming with tracks of unrivaled beauty from the then-young world of house

If you’ve ever wondered why Mr. Fingers — aka pioneering US producer Larry Heard — is so revered among house music aficionados (including, notably, Kanye...

‘Pills ’N’ Thrills And Bellyaches’ header

Manchester's Happy Mondays drew influence from funk, house, and psychedelia to pioneer the Madchester sound. Here, Ben Cardew explores the lasting legacy of their 1990 album, ‘Pills ’N’ Thrills And Bellyaches’, which dropped in the midst of the Baggy takeover, and defined an era

Baggy/Madchester (the terms are largely interchangeable) is one of the most globally under-appreciated musical genres to have ever emerged from the UK’s musical underground. And...

The cover of Vikter Duplaix's DJ-Kicks record

In 2002, Grammy-nominated singer-songwriter, producer, multi-instrumentalist and DJ Viktor Duplaix debuted his entry for K7! Records DJ-Kicks series, blending some of the best broken beat of the era. Here, Ben Cardew explores the compilation's lasting legacy
 

There aren’t enough musicians like Vikter Duplaix. Maybe there never were. Duplaix, a singer-songwriter, producer, multi-instrumentalist and DJ from Philadelphia, dresses like a blasted supernova...

Plastikman album cover

Brooding and austere, Richie Hawtin’s third album under the Plastikman alias is a minimalist masterwork

When first encountering ‘Consumed,’ Richie Hawtin’s third studio album under the Plastikman name, a normal reaction might be like that of the prehistoric hominids in...

Norma Jean Bell LP cover

Detroit saxophonist, producer, and vocalist Norma Jean Bell is responsible for some of house music’s most glorious moments, and has worked alongside the likes of Moodymann, K-Hand, Ron Trent and George Clinton. Her full-length opus, 'Come Into My Room', released in 2001, proved that she really is “the baddest bitch in this room”

If you look in the ‘about’ section on Norma Jean Bell’s Facebook page, it says, simply, “I’m the baddest bitch in this room...” It's a...

Waveform Transmission vol. 1

Released on Tresor in 1992, Jeff Mills' debut LP ‘Waveform Transmission Vol. 1’ is a record that stands for repetition and filth, forged from wrought steel and imbued with scuffed-up funk. Here, 30 years after its release, Ben Cardew takes a deep dive into the sound, origins and legacy of an album that birthed a new breed of techno 

Listen to a lot of older techno today and it sounds rather restrained. Brilliant, yes, and futuristic too, yet largely soft and melodic compared to...

Nicolette 'Let No-One...' album cover

On 1996's ‘Let No-One Live Rent Free In Your Head’, Scottish singer, songwriter and producer Nicolette worked alongside 4Hero’s Dego, Plaid, Alec Empire and Felix to create an album that mixed jungle, trip-hop, industrial techno and avant-pop into a singular work full of sharp, incisive lyricism. Ben Cardew explores the legacy of the album, and its vision for the future of electronic music

In the modern world, it seems sadly inevitable that any female singer who experiments with dance beats will, at some point, be compared to Björk...

Solid Gold - Chemical Brothers 'Come With Us'

‘Come With Us’ was the birth point of The Chemical Brothers 2.0, and it came at a vital time, with the dance music slump of the early '00s leaving many big electronic groups looking vulnerable. Here, on the 20th anniversary of the release of the album, Ben Cardew looks back at how 'Come With Us' reinvigorated their career

The Chemical Brothers entered the new millennium looking tired. Their third album, 1999’s ‘Surrender’, featured massive hits in ‘Hey Boy Hey Girl’ and ‘Let Forever...

It may not be the flashiest entry in Felix Da Houscat’s discography, but this 1994 LP is one of his best. In the latest edition...

From teenage musical prodigy to P. Diddy aide, from psychedelic techno innovator to electroclash star, Felix Da Housecat is one of the most intriguingly undefinable...