Detroit Escalator Co., The* - (Excerpts)

Lovely. Detroit Escalator Company is one of the few acts that actually sounds like the description "ambient techno" suggests. Soulful Detroit percussion and strings, but beautifully laid-back and spacey.

Abstract Forward Motion (As a Mission) is the stand-out track for me. Raises the hairs on the back of my neck every time.

Thank goodness for Excerpts, because trying to track down the various 12”s on which these tracks originally appeared would be a daunting and expensive process. Instead, Peacefrog has thoughtfully compiled them for us. The first three tracks are from the Soundtrack (313) album on Ferox, but the remainder are from records off of Neil Ollivierra’s own short-lived label, Detroit Escalator Records. And not to have these tracks in our lives would be a terrible thing. Even though the tracks are older, their timelessness makes them still seem current. “Force,” for instance, has a glowing quality about it, while “Shifting Gears” has a percussive backbone that makes it stand out among Neil’s other work. Even though these tracks are longer than the output on Black Buildings, they manage to stay interesting (even if they’re not as dense).